Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 31st January, 2025
Hisirdoux fetched and carried and tidied and watched as his master and his older self did many, many complicated things according to a diagram that he'd thought he'd understood - but it turned out it had nuances he still had to learn. "I need to study harder, don't I?" he murmured to Archie, who sat by his hip, observing the proceedings, wide-eyed behind his glasses.
"Well," said Archie thoughtfully, "it seems you'll have time."
"Nine hundred years of it," Hisirdoux said softly. Which was a wonder to him. Theoretically he'd known he'd hit the tipping point of magical immortality. He hadn't gotten sick in months, and his injuries healed a lot faster than they used to! But the idea of nine hundred years stretching out before him... it was a lot. He was only nineteen. What would it be like to live forty-five times longer than his entire lifespan, and then be back here again?
Magic was a wondrous thing, that was for sure.
"Hisirdoux," said Merlin, who had been including him more than usual. "Bring me the hand."
"Oh, ah, yes, Master!" Hisirdoux babbled, hastily standing and fetching Lady Morgana's severed hand. It was grisly, and he didn't like it. She'd been kind to him, and now she was dead. Or resurrected? He wasn't quite clear on that point. But the king having chopped off his own sister's arm in an attempt to murder her... he wished he hadn't seen that. He wished it hadn't happened.
With a nod, Merlin directed him to tip it into the cauldron. Hisirdoux did so, watching as it disappeared beneath the surface of the molten metals.
"Ironic," Merlin said. "Morgana fought against the amulet. Yet now she helps power it."
Hisirdoux's older self nodded, his expression grave as he looked at the alloy.
"At least... at least she could lend a hand?" Hisirdoux offered, trying to lighten the mood a little.
It worked; Merlin smiled and chuckled. Even his older self eased up a little, a spark of brightness in his eyes that hadn't been there before.
"To lock the amulet together, two master wizards are required," said Merlin, taking his student's staff from its place in the Oraculum. Douxie had done well in smithing the pieces of the amulet. He had also worked well with Merlin, the two of them together using the power of the Staff of Avalon, focused through the gem of what would be Douxie's staff, to inscribe magical formulae onto the gem that formed the heart of the Trollhunter amulet. Douxie had risen to the challenge, and become worthy.
He was ready.
Over to the side, Hisirdoux and Archibald watched, both wide-eyed.
To Merlin's surprise, Douxie said nothing, merely nodded, weight in his eyes as his magic took hold of the staff that had been made for him, pulling it toward him with the inexorable current of affinity.
The moment he grasped it, the staff bonded with him, tied in to his own power, his own self, in a way that nothing would break shy of death. And quite possibly not even that, as the example of Morgana showed.
Still, the boy said nothing.
"Cat got your tongue?" Merlin jibed.
Douxie's gaze shot to him, startled. After a second, a small smile crossed his expression. "A play on words," he murmured, which made no sense. Or didn't, until he glanced at Archibald.
"Let us finish this," Merlin said, and granted Douxie his new title for the first time, "Master Wizard."
A glimmer of a smile, and a nod were his recompense.
But it was his starry-eyed younger apprentice who poured the magic-imbued alloy into the back of the amulet. "Steady," Merlin bid him. "Steady... yes. That's enough."
Hisirdoux cut off the flow quickly and hastened to get the cauldron back over the fire, so the remaining alloy would not seize. Merlin intended to cool and temper it properly, to shape it into another ingot of fascinating magical metal to be hidden away in his safe against future need. In the meantime, the amulet assembled itself via levitation. Or tried to. The central gemstone adhered to the alloy, but the frontpieces of the device, which would be the magical mechanism of the invocation, resisted being brought together with the other pieces. It was like trying to hold two opposing pieces of lodestone together, thought Merlin.
No wonder all his previous attempts had ended in failure. He needed more power.
Douxie's magic combined with his own, impressively strong for one who had just gained his mastery, holding the pieces down. "Ad Lucem Gloria Mea," Merlin intoned.
In the glimmering blue-green light of their joint sorcery, Douxie matched him without hesitation. "Ad Lucem Gloria Mea," his former apprentice intoned, lighter voice rising above Merlin's, adding layers and strength to the magic, binding all the separate pieces together, forging what was many into one.
The amulet's hands began to move, to spin. The words inscribed on the face of the device flickered between languages - Latin, Welsh, Orcish, Mermish, Trollish. They changed so fast they blurred together. Until finally, all Earthly languages agreed on one thing: the nature of the device.
Energy exploded, making Hisirdoux flinch against the wall.
Completed, the amulet hovered in the air, reeking of the power put into it.
Merlin smiled across the table, proud. Finally his apprentice had become worthy. Had become someone who might share the burden of protecting the world from the fell forces that threatened it.
"Now," said Merlin, "come along. It is time for the amulet to choose our champion."
Claire was... somewhere. And despite having been there, Douxie didn't actually know the way into Dwoza, so he and Merlin couldn't take the airship. Working cellphones would have been a boon, but in their absence, a quick spell-raven would suffice. Douxie sent one winging off to Claire while Merlin retreated, grumbling, back to his tower. Probably to decant and stash away the rest of that Morgana-infused metal. Which, if he'd done that the first time around, Douxie wouldn't have had to pour pints of his own blood into making Jim's second amulet. That hadn't exactly been fun; the way Douxie's body healed itself up, he'd had to keep cutting himself to get enough. Krel, not usually one to express concern over relative human frailty, had been looking a bit green by the time the alloy in the crucible "caught" the magic according to Douxie's senses. But it had had to be done; the magic imbued in the metal via wizardly flesh and the magic inherent in the gemstone fed on one another, creating the closed loop battery that powered the amulet.
Maybe I should have involved Mam, he thought. Though Barbara hadn't been his mother then, surely she could have helped with the bloodletting.
But that was in the past - or the future, Douxie allowed with a smile - and there was nothing to be done about it now.
He rapped instead on the door of the Tarrons' suite and smiled up at Zadra, who was sans transduction at the moment, when she wrenched the door open, her scythe held at his throat.
"Is this how you always answer doors," Douxie asked, "or is it just a me thing?"
Her shoulders dropped, as did her weapon. Zadra huffed out through her nose. "Come in," she said.
Douxie thought about cheekily pointing out that wasn't an answer to his question, but he really didn't want to test his martial prowess against Zadra's. Especially not this close to a major battle. Especially not when he knew he'd lose.
"So, is it done?" Krel asked as soon as the door closed.
Wordlessly, Douxie ran fingers down his vambrace. His staff appeared in his grip. He smirked. "You tell me."
"Yes!" Krel clenched his fist in triumph.
Akiridion heartstone, Douxie suddenly thought. It didn't work for Jim's amulet because he's never even been to that planet. But when Krel reaches the point where he'll need his own staff...
But that was for then and there, and this was here and now.
"That's your staff?" Darci asked.
"Something wrong with it?" asked Douxie.
She shrugged. "It's... a little industrial looking?"
Which was a fair criticism. "We didn't have time for anything more intricate," Douxie said, shrugging it off. The lines of gold inlay had always been enough decoration for him. And it wasn't like he was Taliesin, whose delicate staff, looking like something out of The Lord of the Rings, had clearly been created in a era of peace and plenty and sufficient time to make it artful. Douxie's staff, like himself, had been forged in a time of oppression. It was always going to be function over appearance.
Aja snorted. "It is not what the staff looks like that matters," she said. "It is what he can do with it that is important. And it does not fail to impress."
"Thank you." Douxie sketched a half bow in her direction.
"So!" Krel brandished a book at Douxie. One of the Gems and Geodes volumes, by the look of it. "Now we can go strengthen Dwoza's heartstone, yes?"
"Once Claire gets here." Which should probably be any minute now. But someone wasn't speaking, Douxie realized. "Mary...?"
One arm held the other. Her eyes looked at the ground. She was not happy.
"What's wrong?" Douxie asked, letting his staff vanish back to his etheric storage pocket. "If this is about the battle of Killahead..."
"Lancelot's going to die." Red-rimmed eyes met his. "Isn't he?"
Hoo boy. Douxie drew a breath. "He is," he said quietly.
"It's not fair!" Mary said. "He's a good guy, and he's still going to die."
Good guys die all the time, died in Douxie's throat. It was an objective truth, but he couldn't just say that to her. It would be cruel. And above all else, he tried not to be cruel. Cruelty is the opposite of punk, he thought irreverently.
He picked his words carefully. "Mary... everyone dies eventually. Even immortals. Ah!" He held up his hand, forestalling the protest he saw forming. "The thing is... death comes in any number of flavors. Quiet; dignified; undignified; angry... and sometimes, very rarely, if you're lucky, meaningful." His own death had been that way. As had Toby's. As had Jim's submergence into Merlin's transformation potion, a death of a different sort.
"Dead is dead. You can't do anything if you're dead," she spat back.
"No, you can't," Douxie agreed, thinking of people he hadn't seen in centuries. The screams of simple murders via blade or bludgeon; later, the screams of musket shot, then of bombs whistling overhead. Bodies falling, trenches collapsing. And every single one of them begging for please, just one more minute, I want to go home, I want to get a chance to say and do all the things I never did, I want to live-
"For better or for worse," he said, "there are no ghosts, no revenants, no second chances to influence the living." He didn't even truly know what lay beyond, only that Merlin and Morgana had walked into it calmly. Peacefully. With no fear. And that he'd been ready to do so himself. "But sometimes... you can buy something with your death." My life is a coin, worth exactly what I can trade it for.
"Buy something?" She was skeptical; he couldn't blame her.
He met Mary's eyes levelly. "If I could give my life for safety for my loved ones," Douxie told her, "I would do so in a heartbeat. And consider it a bargain." He'd done it, with no hesitation. And those he'd done it for hadn't meant nearly as much to him then as they did now.
That got through to her; he could see it strike home. "But..."
"There are some things," Douxie said quietly, with all the weight of conviction in his heart, "that are worth dying for." For him, it had been the chance for Jim and Claire and Nari and the others to get away free. For Lancelot, it would be honoring his king's pact, and fighting the Gumm-Gumms at Killahead.
"I've never felt that way," Mary said. Her voice cracked in the middle, like the weight of feeling inadequate broke her words.
"A lot of people don't," Douxie told her, hands on her shoulders, as if to help bear her up. "And you're so young yet, Mary. The world is-" softer "-gentler now, than it used to be." His voice was gentle too. "You don't have to grow up so fast. You've got time, love."
"That's what Toby did, isn't it?" Darci asked quietly. "When you said he died to give Jim a chance to save the world."
Douxie nodded.
"He must have been so scared."
"That is the thing about heroism," Krel said. He glanced at his sister. "You can be scared, and still have it work."
"Like Mama and Papa," she agreed softly. She looked at Darci. "Toby died a hero, and by doing so, he saved the world."
Collecting Merlin once Claire arrived was surprisingly easy. Krel kept thinking in the distance across spaces, but like the subspace wormholes he'd devised that cut travel time in half between Earth and Akiridion-5, Claire thought of the distance between spaces. Using her powers folded space like it was a sheet of paper, touching two corners together and making travel instantaneous.
"Anyone else?" she asked, once Merlin had joined them in Krel and Aja's rooms.
"I will be going with," Krel said, tucking Dictatious' book under his arm. He had faced Blinky's wrath, once, about a book. He did not care to experience the older Galadrigal's if he could avoid it.
"I will be staying here," said Aja. "Much as I would love to see my Palchuk training the trolls, I do not think that my being present, and thus a distraction, would be a good idea."
"I stay with the queen-in-waiting," said Zadra.
Claire nodded. "Mary?" she offered. "Darci?"
Mary shook her head. "I'll stay here."
"We'll ride out with the knights and meet you at the bridge," said Darci, her hand on Mary's shoulder. "See you there, C-Bomb."
"See you there," said Claire, opening a hole in the fabric of the universe.
And then, between one step and another, they were in Dwoza.
"Hey," said Jim, who had apparently been Claire's anchor point.
"My book!" Dictatious appeared from behind Jim as though summoned. Jim actually jumped.
"I told you I would return it," said Krel as the green troll took the volume from him and cuddled it to his chest.
"You and a thousand other miscreants," Dictatious grumbled. One of his hands was petting the edge of the book's cover. Toby's nana stroked her cats with a similar motion, Krel mused.
"And I kept my word," Krel pointed out.
"I thank you for it! You, sir, will be allowed to borrow from my library again." Dictatious turned and walked away, crooning to the book in his arms.
"And here I thought Blinky was bad about books," mused Toby.
"Blinky is bad about books," agreed Claire. "Even when he's not setting them on fire. But I think you're right; Dictatious has him beat."
"On fire?!" demanded Merlin. He was ignored.
"Speaking of Blinky," said Douxie, "how is he getting on with Aaarrrgghh?"
Jim grimaced. "I've been kind of leaving them alone?" he offered. "I mean, Blink handled it fine all by himself the last time, and I don't want to interfere with that..."
Douxie nodded.
"Hisirdoux," Merlin cut in, "enough of this chit-chat. We must find Vendel. The amulet must choose its champion." His narrow gaze skimmed over the crystal-struck amulet in Jim's chest; the undamaged one on Toby's. "Else tomorrow's battle not happen, and your timeline be destroyed utterly."
"Right." Douxie's gaze swept back and forth. "Ah, Krel, want to come with us? So we can attend to that other matter afterwards?"
"Not really," said Krel, but he fell into place, walking beside Douxie and the other, crankier, wizard as they hunted for Vendel.
"Today," Merlin intoned to the assembled crowd of trolls, "the amulet will choose one of you to defend your people. To hunt these trolls who have betrayed your kind. You will no longer fear the daylight; you will wield it as the Trollhunter."
Toby's fingers brushed over his amulet. Jim's, he saw in his peripheral vision, did likewise. Their eyes met, unspoken agreement and understanding between them.
Deya, lounging nearby and overhead, slurped up a giant leech. "Let's see which one of you brown-snouters gets picked."
Draal, who was so tiny and so cute it made Toby's heart hurt, straightened up. "It would be my honor," he said.
Toby couldn't help the grin that was hidden behind his helmet. Jim and Claire's faces crinkled with the effort of keeping their smiles to themselves.
Douxie held the Amulet of Daylight before himself. "For the glory of Merlin," he bid it, "awake." He released his grasp.
The amulet, glowing brightly, rose into the air. Then it moved, darting from one troll to another, seeking.
Draal's face fell when it rejected him. He turned and burrowed into his father's grasp, disappointment in every line of his stone body. Kanjigar, too, was rejected, but much less upset about it. He patted Draal's back, consoling. "There, my son. Other destinies await us. Other glories."
One after another, all the trolls present were considered, and found lacking. "I told you so!" one whining voice cut over the crowd.
Toby and Jim grimaced. "Unkar," they muttered together.
The amulet rose higher and higher in the cavern, seeking. Troll after troll was judged, until...
Toby's gaze was on Deya as the amulet circled her...
...and chose.
"Rise, Trollhunter, and become," Merlin's voice sounded from the artifact.
She stared at it, wide-eyed. "Uh, I think your amulet has the wrong troll."
"No," said Merlin, cutting through the crowd to stand before her. "The amulet does not make mistakes. For whatever reason, it has chosen you."
"Oh," murmured Claire in a tone of sudden enlightenment. "It's not ego - the amulet's like a program. It can only do what it's made to do."
"Beg pardon?" asked Krel.
"We always thought it was Merlin's ego speaking, when he said that the amulet didn't make mistakes because he never made mistakes," Jim explained sotto voce. "But if Claire's right... the amulet can only do what it was created to do. Which is find the best person for the job. Which has nothing to do with Merlin's ego. Or, at least not much."
"That still doesn't explain Unkar," muttered Toby.
Krel glanced sharply at him. "You are going to tell me about this Unkar another time," he warned.
"I've never been chosen for anything," Deya was protesting. And the voices of Trollmarket were rising in protest that she, an outsider, had been chosen over any of them.
"Ignore them," Merlin pressed her. "Accept this honor."
Deya's gaze flickered back and forth, round and round again, between the wizard, the upset trolls, and the amulet. Finally, she spoke again. "No. They're right. I'm not a hero. I'm not even good at being a troll!" She threw the amulet aside and fled.
"Well, that's not going to work," said Toby. "The amulet's going to zoom right after her. Total stalker behavior, by the way," he commented to Douxie as the wizard came up to them.
"Don't blame me for the fact it doesn't let you all refuse the call," Douxie retorted. "I was busy pouring healing magic into the thing while Merlin was setting all the terms and conditions."
"Hey, don't worry." Jim held up his hand, forestalling any further bickering. "We've got this. Come on, Tobes."
"Wait, what are we doing?" Toby asked, following his bestie right past Merlin and Vendel, in the middle of an argument.
Jim shot him a grin. "Having a talk with Deya. You know, Trollhunter to Trollhunter."
"Well," said Douxie, "while they're busy with that, we should see about that heartstone, right, Krel?"
"Can I come with?" asked Claire. She glanced at Merlin and Vendel. "I really don't want to have to deal with either of them right now."
"Sure," said Krel. "The more the merrier, as your saying goes?"
Douxie wanted to say something about too many wizards being like too many cooks in a kitchen, but he stopped himself. He and Claire and Krel all got on, and she would only be observing, after all. Given her previous comments on her difficulty with geomancy, it was quite probable that this was something she couldn't do, any more than he could work shadow magic.
Maybe it was time to admit that his apprehensions about working with other wizards weren't always well-founded.
Though Merlin and Morgana and Zoe were definitely none of them the easiest people to get along with...
"Wait," he said, following Krel. "Do we even know where the heartstone is?" Dwoza's wasn't as obvious as Trollmarket's was, and while Douxie could feel its presence, via the magic it shed, it could be just about anywhere around here. No one had given him a map!
Krel snorted and turned to walk backwards. "When Dictatious realized that I was researching a way to help shore up Dwoza's heartstone," he said, "he showed me the way to it, so that I could adequately assess its condition."
"Brilliant," said Douxie, his shoulders relaxing an inch. "Lay on, DJ Kleb."
Deya, as Jim had more or less expected, had run back to the ruins of her village. Toby wasn't as fast as him, but Jim wasn't trying to make good time. If he'd wanted to, he probably could have outpaced Deya and beat her there! But that might interrupt whatever timeline echoes were going on here, which was the last thing Jim wanted. So he kept to a more moderate pace.
"You know," Toby said as they came in sight of her and slowed down, "all this Trollhunting's done me some good. I mean, I haven't lost any weight, but running like this would've killed me before." He wasn't even huffing or puffing.
"Wanna try out for track team together next year?" Jim offered.
Toby snorted. "Sudden mental image: me trying to pole vault."
Jim snorted with laughter. "Maybe just the running part? I mean, there's the hundred yard dash or whatever?" His mental image of what the school's track team actually did was nebulous, but he was sure he and Toby could handle it.
"I'll rain check you for whenever Coach holds tryouts," said Toby.
Deya snarled and threw the amulet away. It bounced twice on the rocks, then rose glowing blue back into the air and arrowed straight for her.
"It'll keep doing that, trust me," Jim told her sitting down cross-legged before her. "It chose you."
"Your haunted clock's wrong, Jim," she told him as Toby plopped down by Jim's side. Toby's helmet vanished into the ether and he sucked in a big breath of air. "Why would anything believe I'm a hero?"
Merlin's voice echoed again from the device as it hovered between the three of them, urging Deya to rise and become.
"Maybe it knows something you don't," Toby offered. "It knew something about Jimbo. And me." His thumb tapped at his own amulet, twin to the one that waited for Deya.
"How," Deya demanded, "am I supposed to lead a bunch of trolls who don't give a slorr's knuckle about me?"
"You know, I was chosen to be a hero too, and no one liked it either," Jim offered. "They called me 'Jim the Baby-Handed'." He held out his mismatched hands for her to see.
"Aww, lookit the cute little baby hands!" Toby crooned, leaning against Jim's side.
Jim laughed and shoved at him.
Deya's eyes, as she looked at the two of them, were sad. "I've got nothing," she said. "No one. I'm afraid."
Oh, Jim realized, as comprehension swept through him. There were similarities between him and Deya, yes, but... he'd always had Tobes to lean on. To trust. Even when there hadn't been anyone else, even when Blinky and Aaarrrgghh had still been strangers... he'd always had his best friend.
It was the two of us at the start, Jim thought. It'll be the two of us until the end.
But Deya had no one.
"Fear," said Toby, and his face was unexpectedly solemn when Jim looked at him, "keeps you alive."
"Rule one," Jim murmured in agreement.
Deya looked at the two of them, studying. Then she shook her head, grabbed the amulet, and threw it away again. "I can't even fight," she said, hunched up and miserable. Rejecting her destiny.
And the amulet, Jim knew, didn't automatically make you into a good fighter. It hadn't for him, or for Toby. Certainly not for Unkar. But Deya had come out swinging the first time, so clearly she had some natural talent. All she lacked was...
...Confidence.
But building confidence took time. Time they didn't have. Deya had already found her name, so he couldn't depend on that rediscovered sense of identity giving her what she needed.
What else could they use to substitute for that event?
Jim raised shaky fingers to his amulet.
He had gotten the attention of a unicorn. He had the Time Stone. If you can ever get it to obey you rather than doing its own thing... Douxie's voice echoed in his mind. Douxie had been telling him it was theoretically possible for him to go back to the time of the dinosaurs, but what if Jim wanted to go a little closer to home?
Closing his eyes, Jim took a breath.
And pushed.
Author's Notes: Mary's words about "Dead is Dead" echo from Tamora Pierce's book Lioness Rampant. Krel thinking about the difference between spaces rather than across them was inspired by N-chan's Please Save My Earth fanfic "Falling From The Moon" (which... doesn't seem to be available online right now. I could only find it via the Wayback Machine). Krel's line about being scared and still having something work borrows from Diane Duane's book Deep Wizardry. Douxie's "Lay on, DJ Kleb" riffs from "Lay on, MacDuff" from Shakespeare's MacBeth.