K. Stonham

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 200/?

sakon76 — Fri, 29 May 2026 13:21:26 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 29th May, 2026

Henry was kissing the speed limit on his way into town.

Okay, maybe kissing it from the wrong side.

But his son was showing magic in the middle of the daycare center, which was something Henry had had nightmares about, and Stacy had sounded terrified over the phone....

Yeah, speed limits weren't his biggest concern at the moment.

Though they became a bit more relevant when he slammed on the brakes

He stared through the windshield.

Was that an alien spacecraft descending on downtown Arcadia?

It was.

"This is not a good day," Henry muttered to his not-a-dog, who was sat on the passenger seat of his truck, staring at the landing vessel with just as much interest as Henry himself.

It was one thing meeting the Akiridion prince and princess and helping them fix up their spaceship, which very much did look like something out of a sci-fi movie once you got below the upper 1960s disguise level.

It was another knowing this was probably the spaceship of the usurper who wanted them and their parents dead.

Swallowing against the lump in his throat, Henry fished his cellphone out of his pocket. He'd rushed off at Stacy's call, doing the bare minimum to bank his forge. There was a lot of work he'd have to redo, once this was all over. He'd been busy, he certainly hadn't been checking his messages.

He thumbed through them now.

The most recent was an emergency lock down message for Arcadia Oaks and surrounding areas.

It was very similar to the one that had been issued right before that battle downtown with Killahead Bridge, Gunmar, and his Gumm-Gumm army. Right down to being from the same unfamiliar number.

A curse word dropped from his mouth.

He had a choice: go to his son, or go fight for the world.

He wanted to choose Nuffink. Every cell in his body screamed that he needed to get his child out of danger.

But the daycare had Jack. Nuffink was probably safe. Jack Overland was, if nothing else, the best person Henry knew to put in charge of a room full of children. He'd protect a budding wizard with every bone in his body.

And maybe Henry couldn't make much difference in a fight against an alien tyrant. Maybe he'd die in the attempt.

But he had to try.

He took a deep breath and shifted the truck back into gear. "Once more into the fray," he said. Tannlaus nodded, and hunkered down. Henry floored it.

The speed limit got left in his dust.

Claire and Strickler had Morgana trapped between them.

Claire knew better than to think that meant they had any kind of significant advantage.

Strickler's gaze flickered between her and Morgana, and Jim battling Arthur. Claire hadn't meant to send Morgana to Strickler, she'd been aiming to get her into the same vicinity as Arthur and see if Morgana could realize that the Arthur-that-was wasn't the same Arthur who had been her brother. Clearly Strickler had just happened to be in the same place, which meant he was here on Jim's behalf.

But turning your back on a ninth level sorceress while running off to defend your king/stepson-to-be was just plain a bad idea, and both Claire and Strickler knew it.

Not that Morgana was in top form at the moment. She stumbled over nothing, holding a hand against her head, muttering to herself. She seemed confused and looked distressed. Her nose was still red where Claire had punched her. Drying blood smeared across her face, rendering her less aristocratic than usual.

I could almost feel sorry for her, thought Claire. But she was trying to kill me less than ten minutes ago. So her sympathy only went so far.

Purple magic ghosted at Claire's fingertips. The knife Strickler held was probably sharp enough to cut concrete - and it was definitely not the only one he had on him, merely the most obvious.

They could maybe do this, if they worked together. If they had to.

Douxie wanted them to give Morgana a chance. To recruit her, rather than kill her. There were a million reasons why they should, and that his plan would work on paper, but....

But real life was messy, and people were messier still, and Morgana was messed up in so many ways--

Claire's phone rang, high and shrill.

Morgana spun, her eyes glowing gold and unseeing as she blasted magic at Claire's midsection.

It was too close, too fast. She wasn't Strickler, she couldn't dodge it--

But shadow magic was about redirection.

Claire was able to form a portal just in time.

Morgana's magic went through the tiny black rift in reality and exited another, not fifty feet away.

The Green Knight's helmet was blasted off his head, clattering to the pavement and skidding across it to land just at the edge of the bridge's shadow. He scowled.

Morgana stared.

"Arthur...?"

"Now, set them exactly three point one four meters apart--" Krel instructed Eli while also on his cellphone with Zadra, seemingly ignoring the spaceship that was landing right on top of them. "No, we have no time for altering weapons, Morando is here now. Have the Resistance arm themselves with serrators and be ready to step through the wormhole--"

Eli shared a look with Zoe, the two of them and Darci inching the twin halves of the wormhole generator away from one another on the sidewalk in front of the museum. The generators hadn't felt this heavy while he'd been building them! "It kind of feels like we've been here before?" Eli tried to joke. After all, it hadn't been that long since Killahead bridge had been in, well, nearly this same spot. And that was kind of a wormhole too, right?

Zoe shot him a baleful glare.

"What on Earth are you all up to?" asked Douxie, jogging up to them from across the central green. Just behind him, messenger bag slung cross body, was one of his coworkers from the arcane bookstore.

Krel gave him a glance but also gestured in Eli's direction, clearly indicating for him to do the talking while he settled things with Zadra.

"These are wormhole generators!" Eli explained. "They're going to get the Akiridion resistance here to help fight Morando's bots!"

"That is the plan, anyway," said Krel, finally hanging up. "Zadra is trying to get them ready to go." He crossed his arms and huffed. "It's not like we're working on a deadline or anything!"

Douxie glanced skyward, at the ship whose hum was becoming almost too loud to bear. "And I suppose these generators won't be the first target?"

"Of course not. I will be," retorted Krel. "Also, the wormhole generators also are unlikely to be a primary target since no one has ever seen anything like these before, because I designed and built them."

"We built them," Eli rebutted.

Krel rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes. He," he said, pointing at Eli, "was using magic to know how to assemble them. We will need to figure out what kind later. Now." His eyes narrowed, focused on Douxie. "What happened to you taking care of the Arcane Order?"

"They're done with."

Krel's eyebrows bounced high. As did just about everyone else's. "How, exactly...?"

"They agreed to give humanity a century to find the balance between mortal and magic," Douxie's coworker answered.

"How the fuck did you talk them into that?" demanded Zoe.

Douxie grimaced and made a vague gesture in the air, clearly searching for words. "I just... did?" he asked, sounding unsure of how he'd managed his own feat. "Jamie hugged Skrael, that helped."

"What?!" Zoe's gaze snapped to the coworker.

Who winced under the power of her stare. "He seemed like he needed it...?" the young adult answered weakly.

"Nari went with them," Douxie added over the sound of Zoe's cursing. "Willingly. And they're magic, so they're likely to hold to their bargain."

"Wait, magic people have to keep their word?" asked Darci. Which Eli thought was obvious, but then he guessed she hadn't read all the books he had.

Krel's phone beeped twice, loud enough to be heard over the descending ship. Eli glanced up. It couldn't be more than a hundred feet overhead now, Eli thought. He kind of wanted to run and hide. But he also wanted to see what was going to happen!

"We can talk about that later," said Krel, moving to the half that Zoe stood by. "Morando is here and the Resistance is ready. Eli, fire it up!"

Arthur's glowing gold eyes never left Jim, but he angled his body toward Morgana. His lips curved in a smile. To Jim, it looked cruel, manipulative. But to Morgana it must have looked like something else, because she took a stumbling step toward him. "Sister," he greeted.

"How-- how is this possible?" she asked. "It has been nine hundred years--"

"The gods have their purpose for us. And mine is not yet fulfilled."

Strickler's eyes were on Arthur, his fingers flexing on the knife in his hand. But even as her ringtone died away into silence, Claire's gaze kept fast on Morgana. "Morgana," she called. "This isn't your brother."

Arthur smirked. "Am I not? Does not the same blood run through our veins?"

"Given your unique complexion," Strickler said, "I find it hard to believe your blood runs at all."

Jim fought back a smile. It wasn't like Strickler was wrong, after all....

"Arthur. Arthur, how are you here?" asked Morgana, half-running, half-stumbling forward. "Why are you here?" she asked, gesturing around her, at the canal and presumably Arcadia Oaks at large. "Did you... did you come for me?"

Arthur caught her wrist. Finally his burning gaze shifted from Jim to his sister. "No," he said. "Not for you. For him!" His blade snapped forward, leveled at Jim. "At this impostor, who bears my blade and stands in the way of my masters." His eyes were back on Jim. "Help me defeat him, sister. Let us end this charlatan's reign. Together!"

Morgana's green eyes narrowed, looking at Jim, finally noticing him. "I... I remember you," she said. "The troll who stood in daylight. A member of Princess Aja's party."

Jim smiled, letting himself show tooth. And fang. "Aja is a member of my party," he corrected. "To get at her, you have to go through me first."

In his peripheral vision, Strickler grimaced. "Young Atlas, don't throw fuel on the blaze."

"You came to Camelot... from the future." Morgana sounded like she was half remembering, half putting pieces of a puzzle together. "But why?"

Uh, was Jim's first, unintelligent, unhelpful thought. How much could he say? Because lying, he had the feeling, would not be a good idea.

"Arthur needed to fight on the side of the trolls at Battle of Killahead Bridge," said Claire, saving him. Amethyst light wreathed her hands. Like Strickler, she stood balanced, her knees bent and center of gravity low. Ready to move in an instant. Maybe more ready than Jim himself, and shouldn't he remedy that...? "We were there to make that happen."

That, and getting Douxie his staff back, Aaarrrgghh on the side of the good guys, and Callista out of Camelot's prison and grown into Deya the Deliverer. But Morgana wouldn't know about Aaarrrgghh and Deya. Probably. And almost everything else that had happened... had kind of been dominoes knocked down in pursuit of those goals.

Jim suppressed a wince. Now that he had space to think about it, they'd been like taking a wrecking ball to Camelot.

"Without Arthur intervening at Killahead," said Strickler, sounding exactly like he was in the classroom, "Gunmar would almost certainly have been victorious, and the tide of history forever changed. Given his... fondness... for anyone not under his direct command, it seems unlikely humanity would have survived to the modern day. Let alone many species of magical creatures."

Arthur snorted. "Gunmar was shortsighted."

Strickler inclined his head. "I'm afraid I must agree."

"Hard not to," muttered Claire.

"He sought only to benefit himself," Arthur declared.

Jim couldn't stop himself from asking. "And who do your actions benefit?" Not that he thought he'd get an honest response.

His chest ached where the amulet was. Once upon a time in another timeline, Arthur had ripped the amulet out of him - as much as ripped his still-beating heart from his chest. Jim locked down, refused to rub at the phantom ache.

It won't happen again.

Arthur frowned. "I serve the gods."

"As must we all," said Morgana, more softly. Arthur released her wrist from his grip, gave her what seemed to be an approving smile.

"Morgana, no--!" Claire almost surged forward, but caught herself in time, standing her ground.

Jim swallowed. "Even if the gods," he said, "intend to destroy the world?"

Morgana's eyes flashed. "They would not!"

Arthur said nothing.

Jim nodded toward him. "Why don't you ask your brother what they want? He's been serving them for nine hundred years."

Morgana hesitated, then looked up at Arthur. His gray skin might have been granite, it was so impassive. He gave away nothing. "Brother...?"

"They will make the world anew," said the Green Knight. His gold eyes gleamed. "With none of the treachery and betrayal of man."

Morgana looked stricken. "To do that... they would have to destroy everything."

"It will be rebirthed in fire and ice." The glowing light in Arthur's eyes was the closest Jim had seen to an emotion. He didn't think he liked it. Jim swallowed, remembering Douxie's words about fanaticism and its cost. "And we shall be there with them." He extended a hand. "Join me, sister, in the new world."

Morgana hesitated.

Claire's voice cut across the distance: "Is that what Guinevere would have wanted?"

Arthur's expression did not change. But Morgana... Claire might as well have struck her. She gasped, tears brimming at her eyes.

"No," Morgana whispered. "Guinevere would never have asked for that."

Arthur frowned. "Guinevere is dead. Join me," he commanded.

Or tried to.

He was clearly reaching for the voice of command, trying to pull on Morgana's loyalty. But it wasn't working.

Morgana laughed, and it was high and cruel. "You are no king," she said, baring her teeth even as tears streamed down her face. "You cannot command. The dead cannot command!"

Arthur was motionless for a second, studying her. "So be it," he said. "If you will not join me, then you may die, sister. With all the rest."

Toby lowered his phone with a grimace. "She's not picking up," he reported. There were all kinds of reasons Claire might not be picking up, and almost none of them were good ones.

There was silence, and muttering, for a moment. Then Steve piped up, "Do we really need her?"

"Uh... sunlight?" Toby pointed out. "Great for humans, but kills trolls painfully and instantly?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "Obviously, Dumbzalski. But what I'm saying is, we just need to get these guys some SPF like a thousand or something, right?"

"Sunscreen, alas, does not work on we trolls," said Blinky.

Aaarrrgghh rubbed at his arm. "Sun still burns."

"Who's talking about sunscreen, dorks?" Steve tugged at the collar of his armor. "We just gotta get you some full body coverage!"

Blinky's eyes lit up. "Ah, I take your meaning, young Steven. Clothing and armor, to shield us from the fatal touch of the sun!"

"Uh, remember getting bundled up to go to the bookstore?" Toby asked him. "That wasn't exactly an easy thing, and I kinda doubt anyone's going to be able to fight all wrapped up like a mummy."

Blinky deflated. "I take your point, Master Toby."

Muttered silence again. Then--

"After all that work to rile us up," said Bagdwella, "you're just going to let the matter drop like this?"

"Hey, if you have any ideas--" Toby shot back.

She sniffed. "As a matter of fact, I do."

"Then let us hear it, Bagdwella," said Vendel levelly.

Bagdwella crossed her stout arms. "We do nothing."

A penny could have been heard dropping into the silence.

"What--" Toby started.

Bagdwella held up a hand. "There is nothing we can do, Trollhunter! Sunset is hours away, and the only ally you have who could protect us from the daylight, is not answering. There is nothing we can do, and dying stupidly is just stupid."

Toby blinked. His disbelief must have been etched on his face, because Vendel took up the thread. "Bagdwella is correct," he said gently. "Throwing our lives away for no purpose is meaningless. Ah!" He held up his hand at Toby's look of protest. "The instant we may act, we will," he promised. "But until the sun is blocked from the sky, our deaths would serve no purpose but to thin the opposition of your enemies."

"Master Toby..." murmured Blinky.

Toby didn't like it. He didn't.

But he had to admit Vendel was right. Sometimes there was just nothing you could do.

"All right," he said, shoulders slumping. "But I'm going to keep calling Claire," he warned, cellphone in hand.

Vendel nodded, accepting this. "The moment we may act," he promised, "we shall."

Ignoring Commander Vex, Coranda watched her daughter fight the Zeron.

Aja had always been physically skilled, learning to fight far faster and with much more ease than her brother. But she, too, had regularly complained about her training regimen. It had always been obvious that her core was not in it. She would rather have been doing something else. Been somewhere else.

Been someone else.

Coranda saw none of that sulky reluctance now.

Aja's movements were light and clean, her focus clear.

"Fialkov," Coranda murmured.

"She has improved," her husband agreed. A moment later, he added "Greatly," his brows bouncing up then down again.

"Whatever has happened on this world, it has been good for our children," Coranda said, her fingers touching the vertical slats that covered the Mothership's window.

"And for Vex," Fialkov agreed.

"I told you we should have allowed him vengeance."

"Their plot was obvious," he bit out. "I would not countenance allowing him to walk into their trap--"

"And instead we walked into Morando's," Coranda cut him off.

Fialkov's mouth snapped shut.

He swallowed.

Fialkov spoke lowly. "My pride led us to this."

"Our pride, dearest." Her hand found his. "The blame is mine as much as yours."

Fialkov exhaled but, miraculously, did not argue with her. He had learned that much, at least. They were partners, equal in blame and triumph.

Coranda turned her gaze back to their daughter in time to see Aja offer the Zeron mercy - and to see that mercy refused.

Regret was written on her daughter's face when she took the shot and Zeron Beta fell, a gaping hole in his torso ending his life.

Aja had acted in a way that gave her regret, but not doubt.

Coranda's core sang with love and pride.

The ship descending from the heavens was, admittedly, impressive. Merlin knew not from whence it came, nor did he much care. Save that his former apprentice clearly knew more about it than he, and identified its passengers as enemies.

"An alien tyrant and a nigh-unstoppable 'robotic' army, eh?" Merlin mused as the vessel settled down for a landing, its weight braced on the several buildings ringing the square. The points of contact shimmered with blue magic; the shield spells were Hisirdoux's work, and clearly recent. He'd probably set them before the last battle in this town square. But they were sturdy, and held the weight. The buildings did not crumble.

"At least he remembered something I taught him," Merlin grumbled. "Though, really, two battles of this caliber within a week?" The boy still needed to learn to pace himself.

As if he wasn't already obviously running on near nothing.

Merlin huffed through his nose. "I suppose," he said to no one in particular, "that I'll have to step in and help with this mess. Or else be down one more apprentice."

Toby had to admit defeat. Claire still wasn't picking up, he had no idea what was going on aboveground except that it probably wasn't good, and he'd utterly failed in the task he'd been assigned: rallying Trollmarket to the battle.

"Some Trollhunter I am," he muttered.

Blinky's hand rested on his shoulder, comforting. "We cannot win all battles, Master Toby."

"Yeah, but I just wanted to be good enough this once, you know?" Toby replied morosely.

Aaarrrgghh made a questioning sound.

"I mean, I know Jim's not perfect, but he makes it work out for himself somehow," Toby explained to his wingman, not looking up from where he was examining the armor that protected his toes. "Probably because he's too stubborn to give up, ever. I just wish I could live up to that sometimes."

A tablet was shoved in his line of vision.

Toby blinked.

"Big ship landing," said Aaarrrgghh. "Makes shade?"

Toby took the tablet from him, examining the CCTV footage that was, he guessed, live. "Is this... from Mary?" he asked, looking up into Aaarrrgghh's green eyes.

The troll nodded.

"It will not be very much shade," said Blinky, also examining the footage. "We will still be at great risk."

"Maybe not much shade," said Toby, mind springing into gear. "But maybe enough." He met Blinky's eyes. "How many dwarkstones can you get your hands on?"

Blinky's eyes widened. Then he grinned, wide and toothy, as he rubbed all four hands together. "I begin to see your plan, Tobias. Quickly! Let us be about this."

Arthur grabbed Morgana, hoisting her high in the air by the neck. She gasped in surprise, her golden scale armor protecting her throat from being crushed. The dead king regarded her for an instant, then said "Goodbye, sister," before throwing her.

"Morg--" The name didn't even finish exiting Claire's throat before the gold form crashed into her, knocking her into Strickler, all three of them crashing to the ground together.

With a roar, Arthur leapt at Jim.

Blue eyes wide, Jim instinctively held Excalibur up before himself. The two blades met.

And the world shattered.

Claire yelled, curling into a ball as best she could. Morgana was in the way. Her hands fisted over her ears, useless as everything turned inside out and upside down and gravity stopped working. She was going to throw up, as soon as she figured out where her stomach and throat were.

Morgana raised a shaky hand, eyes glowing gold.

Abruptly, with the feeling of cold pudding and the scent of something dark and floral, the world was gone.

Claire swallowed bile.

The three of them, her and Morgana and Strickler, floated in a void.

The shadow realm.

Claire uncurled, ears ringing. Her gaze snapping to Morgana as the woman spoke. "I think, handmaiden, that you had best tell me what is going on."

Jim was the center of the burning maelstrom. Arthur pushed. He pushed back. Neither of them gave an inch. He was fairly sure they couldn't. It wasn't in either of their natures.

Once, he'd thought the antramonstrum lurking in The Deep had shown him a dark mirror.

But Jim had grown since then.

And this was his new mirror. The one Douxie had seen.

I will never be like you, Jim thought, staring at Arthur's gold eyes, glowing in a face contorted with rage. He met it with his own snarl. But I am exactly like you.

The only way to beat a dark reflection was not to turn away from it, but to accept it.

As soon as he thought that, Jim knew exactly what he had to do.

The one thing Arthur would never do was....

Twisting aside, Jim dropped his Excalibur. The sword fell to the ground.

Lacking opposition, Arthur stumbled into the place Jim had been. Off balance, for just a second.

Jim grabbed Arthur's dark blade, and wrenched it from the dead king's grasp.

For the good of all.

Author's Notes: Thanks to varve for suggesting Blinky and the dwarkstones. Strickler's knife being probably sharp enough to cut concrete is a sideways reference to chapter 56 of their excellent fanfic Take My Hand.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 199/?

sakon76 — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 13:23:46 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 24th April, 2026

Morgana fell through her handmaiden's portal, unable to stop herself before tumbling out into sunshine.

"Agh!" She collided with someone on the way out, knocking them to the ground. It was a man, she realized, as she scrambled to right herself. He had felt mostly composed of knees and elbows. His green eyes, as he too stood, were focused on her, wary. A knife was in his hand. His eyes widened as he took in her armor.

"Pale Lady?" he asked, incredulous.

Morgana wanted to laugh. Her stupid handmaiden had directed her path to one of the people who would instantly side with their creator. "I am," she confirmed, lips curving in a smile.

Right on time, her handmaiden exited the portal behind her. The shadows shrank away and vanished, their doorway no longer needed. The man -- the changeling -- shifted his gaze from Morgana to the girl.

"Kill her," Morgana ordered. It would be an interesting test of his skill, to see if he could defeat a fledgling sorceress.

The girl's eyes widened; she stared at the changeling.

The knife shifted in his hand, switching to a underhand reverse grip.

But he did not strike.

Morgana frowned. "You will kill her," she repeated herself.

Green eyes met hers. The changeling blinked, then shook his head. He straightened - he was very tall.

"No," he said.

Smug confidence shifted to incomprehension, followed by a rising fury. "No?" Morgana demanded, leaning on her magic - magic that had created this being, and his entire people. They were hers! Their will was hers! She ruled them, and he would obey.

A smile touched the corners of his mouth. "No," he said easily. "Do forgive me, Lady Creator, but... my allegiance, apparently, is to another."

Who had dared steal one of her clever, deadly children from her? Morgana's rage boiled over.

It must have shown on her face, for the man crossed his arms, knife still held in one hand, and nodded toward the pair of armored figures beyond himself, battling in the daylight. "I follow my king. I am a knife in his hand. And he, apparently, is my shield."

She shrieked, and blasted a bolt of magic at him that should have ended him where he stood. He was somewhat nimbler than she expected, long legged as he was, and managed to dodge. Black smoke rose from where the bolt landed.

"Hey!" She spun toward her treacherous handmaiden. "This is between you and me, Morgana. Leave Strickler out of it."

Strickler? So that was his name. "He has betrayed me," Morgana said, poisonously calm. "As have you. You will both pay the price."

The girl scoffed. "We both know that you don't really care about that," she said. "All you care about is your baby brother."

"Arthur is dead!" Morgana snapped.

"Really?" The girl looked past her. "Because to me it looks like he's trying to kill my boyfriend. Again."

It was a lie. It had to be a lie. Morgana had seen Arthur die with her own eyes, killed by--

She'd seen the blade through his chest, shadow looming behind him, a cruel smile of victory on... on someone's face.

She had seen him fall on the blood-soaked battlefield.

Morgana stumbled, hand pressed against her head.

"What can I not remember?" she said to herself. There had been someone there. Someone who wielded the blade and smiled at her pain.

She shook her head as the image would not come to her.

"It was Merlin," she tried to convince herself.

But... Merlin hadn't been there, had he? He'd been a league away, with that other apprentice of his....

What couldn't she remember?

Krel's communication device rand loud and shrill, right in the middle of some very delicate work.

"Not now!" he said, slapping his hand on it to silence the call.

It rang again.

And then again.

And again.

Growling, he finally put down his tools and picked it up. "What?!" Krel snapped.

"Morando is landing!" Mary snapped back at him.

"Yes, I know that, I am working to get reinforcements here--"

"He is landing in the town square in four and a half minutes," Mary overrode him. "And Darci is out there. If my best friend dies because your reinforcements weren't here in time, I swear to God, Krel, you will die with her if it is the last thing I ever do!"

He paused. Mary was prone to grandiose statements, but for once he did not think she was exaggerating.

On the other side of the work table, Eli slapped the cover of his half of the wormhole generator. "Done!"

Krel made a gesture. Interpreting it perfectly, Eli immediately dove into finishing the second, mirrored, part of the generator. "We will have the wormhole generator there in a couple mekrons," Krel promised.

"Good." Mary hung up.

Krel huffed a sigh. "Is she always like that?" he wondered aloud to no one in particular.

"Oh yeah," said Eli with a happy sigh, settling the mirrored containment unit over the top of the generator. "You should have seen her when she was heading the middle school dance committee. Mary's always been a leader."

"I think you mean bossy," Krel said. "At least she is on our side. Budge over. Let us finish this up together."

Eli beamed.

Jim's mouth was dry. How do I beat him?

They'd both figured out Excalibur-against-Excalibur wasn't a great idea. More of a ripping-reality-apart idea, really, which definitely meant Jim wasn't planning to do it again.

...But he didn't trust Arthur to not be holding that option in reserve. Which meant he had to be ready for it just in case.

Physically, they were fairly evenly matched. They were back to taking potshots and random swings, trying to force the other into a mistake.

Jim eyed the oily black sheen of Arthur's Excalibur and noted, and discarded, the frisson of horror it sent through him. Forget the blade. That's anti-magic. That could kill me.

Douxie had the same anti-magic stuff as part of his armor. Krel had used it in the previous timeline to build his anti-magic ray.

It's the only thing that's different between Arthur and me, that voidstone coating. How can I use it?

Douxie's mouth was dry.

Halfway across the bookshop's roof, Jamie was still holding on to Skrael. Somehow, miraculously, he wasn't frozen solid. Douxie could see his lips moving, telling the living embodiment of winter something.

Slowly, slowly... the bone-cutting wind died down, snowflakes settling to the roof.

"Mordrax's miracles," Douxie breathed, even as Merlin said "By Taliesin."

Douxie glanced sharply at Merlin, but his master, as ever, was unconcerned with him, looking wide eyed instead at the god and the young wizard.

Which didn't help Douxie's nerves at all. Was he going to react like this every time Merlin mentioned Taliesin, for the rest of his life? He hadn't cared at all, before.

But that had been before he'd known he was Merlin's Taliesin.

I'm going to give myself away, if I can't keep my reactions under control, Douxie thought. He can't ever know I was Taliesin. Or that I might be Mordred!

Surely pretending to innocence and ignorance couldn't be harder than being Taliesin had been?

Surely?

"Great Tiamat's hoard," said Archie softly as Jamie let go of Skrael, shaking out his hands not like they'd been frozen, but like they hurt from holding on too hard. "Has he really managed it?"

"You should have more faith in wizards," Nari chided. "And perhaps more in my brother."

Skrael regarded Jamie, who looked very young and very human, for a long moment. Then the god nodded and turned. He glided across the space between them and reached out a hand to Nari. "I no longer wish to be alone," he said quietly. "Will you come home with us, Nari?"

She beamed and nodded, taking his hand. "And you will give them time?" she asked.

Skrael's eyes, as blue as ice, met Douxie's. "You may have," he said, "one century."

"One hundred years," Bellroc rasped in agreement, "to change mankind. If not... we will pass judgment, and act."

It was the best he could hope for. It was all he had asked for.

"Nari, you cannot trust--" began Merlin. The plants which held him rippled; a giant leaf reached out and slapped itself across Merlin's mouth, muting him.

Eyeing his mentor, Douxie turned and bowed instead, deeply. "Thank you, my lords and lady."

Nari's free hand raised Douxie's chin. "We will not see you again for a century."

"We need to... heal," admitted Skrael, looking back and forth between his siblings. "Alone. Together."

Oh. Douxie had thought he would have more time with Nari.

But she'd been their sibling long before Douxie had ever come into her life.

He forced a smile. "I wish you the best," he said, managing to mean it even while already missing her.

Nari's eyes were as deep and bottomless a green as a forest's shade on a hot summer day. "I will miss you, Douxie."

"And I you, milady."

She turned sharply, looking away from the town square for a moment, before looking back as Douxie. A small frown was on her face. "You have served me well, Hisirdoux Casperan," she said, oddly formal. "You may ask me for a boon."

"What?" said Douxie stupidly. Why was she offering him a boon?

She looked expectantly at him.

"Douxie," hissed Archie.

"Um. Uh." Douxie knelt. "My lady Nari," he said. "May I beg of you a boon?"

She smiled, and it was like sunshine after a rain cloud. She held her cupped hands forth, and in them something gleamed. Douxie took it from her. It was small, cream colored, triangular with rounded edges.

"A guitar pick?" he asked, confused.

Nari looked at him for a moment longer, and he thought he saw sadness cross her expression. "Use it well," she said. Then she broke, her arms wrapping around him, fast and strong. "Thank you for everything, my friend," she whispered.

Then her arms, and attention, were gone from him. A wave of her hand vanished the plants which had caged Merlin. As Douxie stood, pocketing the pick, Merlin knelt so he was eye to eye with the diminutive goddess. "Nari, are you sure about this?" he asked softly, taking her hands in his.

Nari glanced away from him, looking at her siblings. After a second, she smiled softly. But there was pain in it too. "Yes," she said. "Too long have we three been sundered. We must reconvene... reconnect," she corrected herself. Her small hand touched Merlin's cheek, like she was a mother comforting a child. "It will not be long. Only a hundred years!"

"Only," said Merlin dryly.

Nari smiled like a blooming of flowers. "Thank you for everything, my friend."

"Godspeed," said Merlin, "my friend."

And then she was gone, walking across the roof with Bellroc and Skrael. She took their hands in hers, beaming.

Light swallowed the three gods, too bright to see. Douxie shaded his eyes with his hand, squinting.

Then the light was gone, and so were the Arcane Order.

Varvatos Vex knew how to dance. He had danced the dance of death and dismemberment upon many worlds, and always taken first place! He prided himself on that accomplishment.

But on Earth, such things were largely frowned upon. Instead, here he had learned the native dance of the Rumba from the beauteous Nancy. Much more rhythmic, much less bloody. Which was a disappointment. Still, time spent with Nancy, even in tamer pursuits, was never wasted.

But she was not here for this number, as he took on the two remaining members of the Zeron Brotherhood, solo. He was tempted to bellow glorious! at the top of his lungs as he spun and dodged and struck, but... well, no need.

"Excuse us!" Prince Krel banged out of the front door of the Mothership, his arms laden with one half of the wormhole generator. "Coming through!" The Pepperjack followed narrowly behind him, carrying the other half. They both beelined for the carport and Stuart's junker that still rested there.

Zeron Beta's head snapped toward the pair. Leaving Omega alone to dance with Varvatos, he dropped to all fours and raced toward the teenagers.

"Oh no you don't!" Princess Aja vaulted the fence between the backyard and the carport, landing on top of the vehicle that Krel and Eli were hastily shoving their burdens into, and spun her way off its surface, slashing with her serrator at Beta's face.

"Aja--" said her brother.

"You leave this to me, little brother!" Aja told him. "Go help Mary, and leave the Zerons to Varvatos and me!"

"Don't have to tell me twice!" said Eli, ducking into the old-fashioned spaceship.

Krel rolled his eyes. "Have fun," he told his sister, and hopped in after Eli.

Varvatos roared with delighted laughter as the antiquated saucer ship roared off into the sky, leaving the Zerons in the dust.

Zeron Omega growled. "Do not take me lightly!" she snapped.

"Believe me," said Varvatos, pounding one fist into another, feeling unholy glee cross his face, "Varvatos Vex is taking his well deserved vengeance most seriously."

"Allow me," said a gravelly voice, "to cut in."

Lightning flashed, and a familiar red-armored form appeared between the two of them, his back to Varvatos.

Omega's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Traitor," she spat.

"I have had a better offer," Tronos Madu replied. "Rather than wallow in death... I choose to live!" He struck, fast as lightning.

Eli screamed, clinging to his seat as Stuart's ship swooped and dove and barrel-rolled over the streets of Arcadia.

"This thing-- drives like a--" Krel hauled back on the wheel just before they would have crashed into Mr. Hammes' yard. With his lower right hand, he hit a button that had been pulsing red. The ship leveled off. "Phew."

"How did Stuart even get to Earth in this thing?" Eli asked, climbing back into his bucket seat and pointedly buckling his belt.

"Seklos only knows," Krel muttered, checking the route map on the screen above him. "Though that was before I started harvesting parts and Zoe did who knows what to this ship...."

"Great," muttered Eli.

"Aha. Downtown Arcadia, ETA twenty-four point three seconds," said Krel, sounding pleased. "Hang on."

Gulping, Eli obeyed.

Draal stood in the doorway, looking dubiously at the other side.

Behind him trolls clustered, looking over his shoulders. "Uh, yeah, nope," said one.

A clustering of "nope nope nope"s agreed with the first speaker.

Draal reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out his cellphone, dialing a familiar number. "Toby," he said when the person on the other end picked up, "there is a slight problem in the plan."

"What slight problem?" the Trollhunter asked.

"It's sunny."

"Sunny?!" Toby demanded of his phone.

"Wait, no one checked their weather app?" asked Steve.

Toby ignored him, thinking frantically. If it was sunny above ground, the trolls would be able to do bupkis in the face of oncoming doom, gloom, and destruction. Not without turning into so much statuary, which was not part of the plan.

"Hold on a sec," he told Draal. "I'm going to call an expert."

Toby hung up and dialed Claire.

"Well," said Merlin, after a long moment, "it seems you've won, boy."

"We've won," Douxie insisted. "We've given humanity back their magic and persuaded the gods to give mankind a century to better themselves."

"I had very little to do with it," said Merlin. His expression, the way he was looking at Douxie... it was like his master was seeing him, truly looking at him, for the very first time.

It made Douxie squirm inside.

"People can do it," he insisted. "Man went from first flight to walking on the moon in sixty-five years! Humans can do incredible things, if only you let them."

"Incredible things, and incredibly bad things," Merlin agreed, never looking away from Douxie's face.

Douxie faltered, remembering endless wars and the development and deployment of nuclear bombs.

He swallowed.

That was, he supposed, the biggest difference between himself and Merlin. Douxie was an optimist, while Merlin didn't trust in anything he couldn't personally control.

After a moment, he found his words. "I have to give them a chance," he said, meaning humanity. "If I don't... what's even the point?"

Merlin nodded slowly, placing a hand on Douxie's shoulder. "You do have to give them a chance," he said. "And sometimes... they surprise you." He turned and walked away, to the edge of the roof overlooking the town square.

Merlin... hadn't been talking about humanity, Douxie realized.

Hope, and a tangled mess of other emotions, welled up inside him so fast they brought tears to his eyes. He crouched and hugged Archie for stability.

"Well done," his familiar murmured.

Douxie breathed out warm, amused laughter. "I'm not the only one," he said, looking beyond his familiar toward his coworker.

"Indeed," agreed Archie, following his gaze.

Douxie straightened and walked over to Jamie, who was fidgeting with his book bag. Which undoubtedly had a dozen libriomancer's weapons in it.

Jamie hadn't needed to use a one.

"Look at you," said Douxie fondly, nudging his coworker in the side. "Talking to gods like an equal. Getting them to back off from taking the nuclear option."

Jamie ducked his head, blushing. "Don't tell Jack."

Douxie's grin widened. He laid an arm across Jamie's shoulders. "You mean I shouldn't tell your ridiculously overprotective brother-slash-uncle-slash-best-friend-slash-roommate that you ran headfirst into a highly volatile and dangerous situation and put yourself in harm's way to hug an angry god?"

Jamie glared up at him.

Douxie had to laugh. "Jack would be just as bad," he pointed out. "Especially if it was your life at stake."

"I know!" said Jamie. "Who do you think I got it from?" He pouted. "I'm not that clueless about where I learned everything." He let out a long, shuddering sigh. "'That doesn't mean you couldn't be afraid and still have it work'," he quoted. He exhaled, and it sounded shaky. "Fortunately."

Douxie sobered a touch, though he didn't stop smiling. "Jack would be proud," he said. "You did a good, brave thing. Sure you don't want to aim for master wizardry?"

"What, are you recruiting?" Jamie sassed back.

"Hisirdoux," Merlin's voice cut in from the far side of the roof, "what on Earth is that?"

Zoe hummed, her body rocking to the music as she killed time. The midday weekday shift was usually busier than this, but Casperan and his team had sent out a lockdown alert to what was probably every communication device located remotely in the Arcadia Oaks vicinity.

Thus, HexTech was dead at the moment.

But someone had to man the front desk just in case, so she didn't get to be back in the bowels of the shop working on anything interesting like her coworkers. So she was being a good little hedge witch and sitting tight until she got a call and heard a desperate Welsh voice on the other end begging her for help.

Or got a text from her apprentice technomancer, the gist of which would amount to the same thing.

She wasn't expecting the loud crash that rocked the building.

"Jesus H!" She jolted off her stool, whipping around to look out the front windows. Outside, she could hear multiple car alarms going off in the direction of the park.

She bolted out the door, abandoning her useless post, running to see what had happened. Just ahead of her was a Black girl in armor, also running for the park.

A flying saucer had crash landed in the town square, its rim just taking out the fire hydrant in the park near the antique store. Water jetted high into the air.

"What the fuck?!" yelled Zoe. Because she knew that flying saucer. She had flown that flying saucer!

"Oh, hi miss Zoe!" Eli Pepperjack waved at her from the aperture on top of the dome, his arms full of a silvery something. "Hi Darci!"

"Eli?!" the Black girl demanded.

"Out!" Krel Tarron boosted the boy out, making him yelp and slide down the tilted disc to the ground, then clambered out himself, three of his arms cradling a matching silvery something.

Zoe crossed her arms. "Let me guess. Neither of you took driver's ed."

"I did!" Eli defended himself. "But Krel was the one driving."

"I did not have time to take driver's ed," Krel defended himself, landing upright in the park next to Eli. "And right now we do not have time for parallel parking anyway. General Morando is about to land!"

"Yeah, righ...." Zoe's words tapered off as something blotted out the sun. Something which rapidly grew bigger as it descended. The air hummed. Small pebbles started vibrating as it drew nearer. "Oh. Ship," she cursed, staring up.

"Yes," said Krel. "That is about the size of it."

Merlin stared as something descended from the heavens. "That... is not of Earthly make," he said. It was certainly not Camelot, nor the Arcane Order's castle either.

"No," Hisirdoux said by his side, "it's not." His former apprentice's gaze was directed toward the ground, to the smaller vessel which had crash landed, and the figures which had emerged from it and the nearby shopfront.

"Douxie..." said the youth who worked in the bookstore, standing on Hisirdoux's other side and staring at the behemoth above them.

"Get to safety," his apprentice said.

"But--"

"Jamie." Hisirdoux clasped a hand on his shoulder, looking the young man in the eye, "this is above your level, and nothing to do with magic. This is an alien tyrant with a near unstoppable robotic army, come to slaughter. Put the bookstore on lockdown, and stay safe."

"I'm not in this to stay safe," snapped the youth.

Hisirdoux's mouth tightened. "I can't force you," he said, even though he very well could. "But I can tell you this is not your fight."

"This is my town too," Jamie snapped, his fingers tightening on the strap of his bag. "I'm not a kid anymore."

Hisirdoux paused, then nodded, relenting. "Don't get killed," he said. A smile quirked the side of his mouth. "Jack would kill me."

"If I get killed, Jack can come after me himself and leave you out of it," retorted Jamie.

"Oh, charming, an Orpheus scenario," remarked Archibald. "Douxie, may I suggest that your friends down there need aid?"

"You may indeed," said Hisirdoux Casperan, and, with a quirked smile, he vaulted the edge of the building, heading for the street two stories below.

Jamie stared for a second. "Swear to god, he and Jack are birds of a feather. Why are they both like this?" Jamie asked rhetorically, and followed.

"Heavens only know," said Archibald, flying after.

What was it, Merlin wondered, that so tightly bound youth and recklessness?

"Your Majesties, it is not safe--"

"No," said King Fialkov. "I will not cringe and hide like a frightened child any longer. That is my daughter out there," he said, gesturing toward the street.

"And she is doing marvelously," murmured Queen Coranda, the tips of her fingers touching the blinds. "Vex has taught her well."

"Yes, he has," Zadra agreed, surprising herself. Commander Vex might be a traitor, but even she could not doubt his loyalty to the royal children and their safety.

Light flashed; Zadra spun back toward the window. "Mother! What is going on."

"It seems a Voltarian has joined the fight."

"A Voltarian?" Fialkov's eyebrows bounced toward his hairline. "What is one of them doing here?"

"He was, I believe, a bounty hunter," Zadra told him.

The king and queen's fists each tightened.

"He has joined Princess Aja and Commander Vex's side in the battle," the Mothership added.

"What?!"

"You know," said Aja, conversationally, as she danced with Zeron Beta, "you could just give this all up. Retire to some little planet in the middle of nowhere and take up... farming or something. Maybe open a dance studio! I feel like you would be good at that."

A growl was her only response.

She sighed, dodging a swiped claw that held a glowing green blade. "I am just saying you have options! You can change, and not be licking at the boots of a usurper."

His eyes narrowed. As did the fighting distance between them.

"It is not all about killing me and my brother, you know! Yes, we killed your Alpha, but you came for us first. You could have left us alone." He wouldn't give up, Aja knew. But she had to give him the chance. She had to try.

"It could be different," she said quietly. His ears twitched.

Beta paused.

Aja allowed herself to hope. Maybe this time it would be different--

Beta's eyes narrowed, and with a yowl, he leaped for her.

Bracing herself, Aja pulled the trigger.

Author's Notes: One set of opponents down, two to go! Archie references Tiamat, who I believe is originally from Mesopotamian mythology. Jamie quotes from Deep Wizardry, by Diane Duane. Judging by the construction down the street, HexTech is probably in the same vicinity of Arcadia Oaks as Stuart Electronics - so, behind the museum somewhere.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 198/?

sakon76 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:37:31 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 20th March, 2026

Douxie's heart was in his throat as his very young, very reckless coworker wrapped arms around Skrael's shoulders and hugged the god from behind.

The temperature on the rooftop plummeted immediately, icy winds howling like an Antarctic gale.

Douxie cast a shield, buffering himself and Archie from the worst of the Arctic deep freeze; Merlin did the same, sky blue and emerald green bubbles surrounding them. Nari stood halfway outside Douxie's bubble, looking serene and indifferent. Bellroc, despite being an elemental of fire and heat, was similarly calm, unaffected by their sibling's domain.

Douxie could barely see Skrael through the snow. Could barely see Jamie's pale hands where they met one another. Certainly couldn't hear what his (dying, he had to be dying--) coworker mouthed into the god's ear.

All he could think was, Jack will kill me.

"Jamie--!" He started forward.

He was checked by Nari's hand in his, as immovable as a bar of iron.

Douxie stared at her, slack-jawed. Jamie was an unknown to her, but surely she wouldn't just allow him to die like this!

"It is well," she said, her gaze never leaving Skrael and his burden. "Trust me, Douxie."

The god in black shook himself once, trying to buck Jamie off, then fell back on the simpler expedient of murdering him through subarctic cold. The kind that exploded trees and froze men solid.

If Jamie had been been anyone else, it probably would have worked.

But Jamie was Jamie Bennett, the ever-so-great-nephew, adopted brother, and best friend of Jackson Overland. Once Jack had finally figured out that he was never, ever getting rid of Jamie, he'd done the same thing he'd been doing for kids for three hundred years.

Jack had protected him.

Which meant that by now, Jamie was swathed and bound in so many spells and charms guarding him from Jack's innate powers of winter that he barely noticed as the god tried to freeze him.

Jamie hugged the god tighter. "I'm sorry you're hurting," he said even as the wind tried to rip his words away.

"I do not accept the pity of a mortal!" snapped the god, trying again to buck him off.

Jamie held on. He'd had to do this more than once with Jack, when he got into black moods. And if being left behind for three hundred years had been bad for his brother... how much worse must it be for someone who was probably older than Jamie could even imagine?

"We're all broken," he said. The god... froze, for lack of a better word. "We're broken, and scared, and lonely," Jamie told him, because despite everything, despite being very young for an immortal wizard, that was true. Jamie knew he was going to lose his mom and his sister, and all his non-wizard friends, all too soon, and have to go on without them.

Jamie had come to college in California, and Jack had followed him, settling here when Jamie had found the real magic bookstore that held everything Jamie had ever wanted to know and more. But Jamie missed his home too. Calls and e-mails just weren't the same as being there and getting to hug and spend time with the people he loved.

Jamie swallowed. "But even if we're lonely," he said, throat hurting, "we don't have to be alone." Because he didn't. He had Jack. And Douxie. And Mister Del Toro, and even Beth, and Zoe from the record store, and all the other wizards here that he was trying to make into some sort of community, even if some of them were being pains in the rear.

Jamie might not look very alternative, but he was a wizard. And he still remembered the day he'd figured out some things about Douxie. He'd been relatively new to the bookshop, and to Arcadia Oaks in general, and a little nervous about possibly screwing up the first job he'd ever really wanted. Douxie had been teaching him how things worked, having Jamie help him shelve books as sunlight drifted dust-speckled through the front windows of GDT. The much older wizard had looked over at him, smiling. Jamie didn't even remember what they'd been talking about, but he remembered very clearly Douxie telling him "Helping people is very punk rock."

And, well, Douxie wasn't Jack. But Jamie figured that was still a good enough guideline to go by.

"Let me go!" Claire struggled against Angor Rot's grip.

"Sorry, little witch," he murmured. His voice was like gravel. His grasp was like stone. She couldn't get out of it. "It's nothing personal."

Her eyes widened as Morgana drew nearer, a look of vindictive triumph on her face. The gold light held in her emerald hand twisted, reshaping itself. Claire didn't know what it was going to do, but she knew for certain it was going to hurt.

Angor's bony fingers tapped against Claire's wrist. Three times.

"Don't resist," he advised, right in her ear.

"Or do resist!" Dictatious crowed, gloating. "It will make this so much more enjoyable."

Two taps.

"In a minute," Angor murmured, "there are many days."

Claire's eyes widened.

Morgana's flame was right in her face.

One tap.

Dictatious' face wrinkled. "Wait, why does that seem familiar--"

Angor let go.

Pulling back and engaging her core, Claire let her fist fly full force into Morgana's face.

The sorceress flew back, crashing against the heartstone crystal, which brightened at the impact.

"What?!" Dictatious demanded, aghast, before his words cut off with a gurgle. Standing behind him, Angor held one knife at his throat and presumably another at his back.

Morgana's hand was against her cheek, her eyes bright with shock and surprise. Had anyone ever dared hit Lady Morgana, sister to the great King Arthur? Somehow Claire didn't think so.

"You dare--" Morgana hissed.

"Revertere ad me!" Claire shouted. Her amethyst ring rose from where it had been knocked to the ground. In a heartbeat, violet light surrounded her, transmuting into her own armor. "Now we're even," she told Morgana. "Thanks," she added to Angor, with a nod.

He returned the gesture with a cool nod of his own.

Morgana picked herself up like a broken puppet. She laughed. It was cold, and empty. "You will die for this," she promised.

Claire was not impressed. "Better versions of you have tried to kill me."

"Where they failed," Morgana vowed, "I will succeed!" She leapt for Claire.

Twisting aside, Claire summoned a shadow portal just in time for Morgana to soar through it.

"That's not going to keep her long," she said. She looked at Angor. "You got him?"

Angor nodded again. "Go take care of our tormentor, little witch," he said. "I will catch up once I've remanded this to its keepers."

Claire grinned, and dove through the portal after Morgana.

"There!" Krel snapped one last relay into place. "That should do it. Mother, what is your status?"

It took a sekton before she replied, undoubtedly running a full systems check. "I feel much better."

"Oh, good, that is--" Krel's brain performed what he had learned was called a record scratch. "Wait. You feel better?"

"Yes, my royal."

"Seklos and Gaylen." He stared at the smooth metal of the Mothership's wall as Lucy and Ricky closed up the panel they'd all been working on. "Mother... Mother, are you sapient?"

"I have little to compare to, but I believe... yes."

Krel gave a crow of delighted laughter and did his best to hug Mother. It had been easier when she was in the body of an OMEN robot, in the other timeline, but he did his best with four arms and a flat wall. "Mother, that is wonderful!"

Two more sets of arms wrapped around Krel and the wall too. "Us too, honey!" said Lucy enthusiastically.

"Gives us the edge to secure the win, champ!" agreed Ricky.

Krel looked back and forth between the two Blanks. "Wait, you are sapient too?" he asked. They both nodded. Krel breathed an impressed laugh. "That surge from Gaylen's Core was really something...!"

"Indeed," Mother agreed, the paneling under his hands momentarily warming. It felt like an embrace from her. "But now you should get back to Mister Pepperjack."

Krel's eyes widened. "Eli!" he said, and scrambled away. "Seklos, I almost forgot. The wormhole generator!"

"You go get 'em, slugger," said Lucy. "We'll finish up here and follow."

Ricky picked up a spare pipe and grinned, tapping it against his other hand. "Any rough types try to get in, we'll make those dirty rats pay."

"Uh, right," said Krel, eyeing the threat of violence. But then, he guessed, as long as it was directed at their enemies, he could understand it. "I will see you in a bit."

Jim had thought he was ready for the divine screeching feedback Douxie had predicted when the two Excaliburs met.

He was wrong.

As they clashed and Arthur's black blade screeched down Jim's silver one, reality warped, stretching in impossible ways. It was deafening and silent. It felt worse than the roller coaster that had made Jim throw up when he was seven. Inconceivable shrimp colors throbbed around the contact point of the two blades, neither giving an inch.

He staggered back.

Arthur did the same, panting heavily. "What fell sorcery was that, boy?"

Jim swallowed, his mouth dry. His ears throbbed.

Douxie would have a clever answer, one that might even be magically accurate.

Jim didn't. But he suddenly remembered watching a cartoon movie with Toby years ago, sat on the rug in front of the TV at the Domzalski house, the two of them sharing a bowl of popcorn while Nana worked on her knitting. She'd been making them matching Christmas sweaters. What had happened to those sweaters? Jim couldn't remember.

"Two things," he said, remembering the movie, "cannot occupy the same place at the same time." It wasn't quite the right answer, but it felt related.

"What?" demanded the Green Knight.

Jim tried to work moisture back into his mouth and breath back into his lungs. There was an answer in the memory, he knew it. Something about science versus magic. Which he knew wasn't a conflict - Krel was his friend just the same as Douxie was, each capable of creating incredible, mind blowing things. Douxie himself said that magic was just another field of study, one possibly related to dark matter. It didn't work against the universe, but with it. Jim wasn't a wizard, not bone-deep like Douxie was, but he'd been steeped neck-deep in magic and magical people for several years now....

"One thing," said Jim, finding the corollary he'd been searching for, "cannot occupy two places at the same time."

When they'd gone back in time to Camelot, they'd revisited the past. But when Jim had used the Time Stone to come back, he had rewritten the past. And like Jim's Magitech armor, Excalibur was bonded to him in ways he didn't fully understand and might never. But since they were his, both the armor and the sword had come back with him. The armor didn't exist as a discrete entity in this time... but Excalibur did.

So now there were two Excaliburs where should be only one. That was what caused the wrongness, the universe-warping point of destruction when they touched.

Excalibur had been made by a goddess, and there was only supposed to be one of it.

So why aren't they joining back together? Do I have to destroy Excalibur? How?

"What is the meaning of this, whelp?" demanded the dead king.

Across the distance between them, Jim met Arthur's eyes.

"It means," he said, regaining his footing, "there can be only one."

It's either you or me.

Arthur charged.

Steve's totally awesome team-picking session was interrupted by screams.

"What the--" said Domzalski, still standing on top of Aaarrrgghh. "Angor Rot?"

A path melted away before the tall, pale troll, Heartstone citizens scrambling out of the way of him and the green troll he held at knife point, all four arms twisted and bound behind his back.

Mr. Blinky choked. "Dictatious?!"

"Hey, man, you're interrupting my--our battle planning!" Steve whined.

Angor cast him a toothy smile and cast Dictatious to the ground, where he landed right in front of Vendel's feet. "Then by all means, continue."

Dictatious looked up. "Vendel!" he said, and crawled forward. "Save me from this mad troll!"

Angor snorted. "I found him consorting with Lady Morgana. He seemed all too willing to torture your Claire with her."

"Lies!" Dictatious wailed. "He twists the truth, to condemn me!"

Something dark flashed across Angor's expression. "I would sooner die than be in bondage again," he said, kneeling and slamming a blade into the stone by Dictatious. "But you go crawling back willingly." His tone dripped with derision. He looked up at Blinky. "You claim this as your brother?"

"Sadly," said Blinky, "I must. Stone of my stone that he is."

"I had no choice!" Dictatious surged to his feet. "My only option to survive the Darklands was to ally myself to Gunmar, to make myself valuable. I survived so that I might one day come home to you, Brother!"

"Someone came home," said Aaarrrgghh, shaking his head sadly. "Maybe not person Blinky remembers."

"Quiet, you brute," snapped Dictatious. "You too are nothing more than Gunmar's tool."

"Aaarrrgghh, pacifist," the big troll disagreed.

"If I believe that Aaarrrgghh had the capacity to change from evil to good," Blinky said softly, "then so too I must accept the belief that the reverse is possible, Brother."

The trolls of Trollmarket were dead silent, watching the two brothers.

At least until Vendel cleared his throat. "Then why, Blinkous," he asked dryly, "can you not believe that Dictatious, too, might find his way back to decency?"

Blinky looked like he'd been smacked across the face; his head whipped around to look at Vendel. "I--"

Trollmarket's leader held his hand up and looked blindly at Dictatious. "It may not be easy," he said, "and it will not be fast. But if you wish to stay among us, Dictatious, you must prove yourself worthy of our trust. Do you understand me?"

"I--" Dictatious looked left. Looked right. Saw nothing but the stony faces and crossed arms of the trolls who lived here.

He folded. "I will try, Elder," he whispered, his head bowed.

"Good," said Vendel, his tone leaving no space for argument. He looked at Steve. "Proceed, human."

It took Steve a minute to remember what he'd been doing. "Oh yeah. Uh, Alpha Squadron, with me!" A round dozen of Trollmarket's strongest fighters surrounded him. "Let's go kick some bad guy butt, dudes!"

Approving battle roars were his answer.

"Beta Squadron, with me!" called Draal. "For Arcadia!"

"What the hell was that?!" Zelda snarled.

"Nothin' good," NotEnrique replied, his eyes literally as big as saucers as the little ex-changeling stared down at the armored figures in the dry wash.

Whatever it was that had happened when the two blades collided, it had felt like an earthquake. If she hadn't been grabbing the railing of the bridge when it hit, Barbara was sure she would have been knocked off her feet. Even now, she wasn't sure of the bridge's structural stability.

The two figures shook themselves, shrugging off whatever magical blast they'd unleashed, and circled one another warily, jade green against blue-limned silver. And then... Jim said something, something Barbara couldn't hear from here, and the dead king attacked him again.

Her knuckles were white on the railing.

She wasn't a witch or a warrior. All her years of Krav Maga, all the knowledge she'd built up year after year in medical school... none of what she learned or could do was of use here. Her son was facing an enemy from beyond the grave, and if Barbara tried to interfere, all she would become was a distraction or a casualty.

Tires screeched. A car door slammed. Footsteps ran toward them.

"Barbara!" It was Walt, his hands suddenly on her shoulders.

She managed to wrench her gaze away from her son, to look up at her boyfriend. I'm supposed to be mad at him, Barbara thought, but couldn't remember why. It didn't matter, compared to what was happening before her.

I'm going to watch my son die.

"...do something," she managed to whisper.

His eyes widened.

Releasing her, he set his hands on the railing, eyes scanning the canal below. "Too exposed," he muttered. "They've left the shade."

"He led them out of the shade," Nomura reported. "Away from Trollmarket."

"The knight?"

"Jim," said NotEnrique.

Walt's lips tightened. He looked farther down the canal, then turned and looked across the bridge. He wet a finger and lifted it, testing the air. He nodded and produced a knife. "I can provide a distraction."

"Are you nuts, Boss?" demanded NotEnrique.

"Quite possibly," said Walt. He shrugged off his tweed jacket and laid it on the railing. "But for a king who will lead us all into the light...." He shrugged. His smile was small, sardonic. Then, like some kind of action hero, he single-handedly vaulted the railing.

Barbara surged forward. "Walt!"

He landed on the sloping side of the canal, skidding a little bit in his oxfords until he reached the bottom. There, he walked stealthily toward the pair that were trying their best to kill one another, matched swords slashing through air and clashing off armor.

"Noble fool," said Nomura. "He's going to get himself killed."

Barbara was afraid she was right.

"Oh. Crap," said Mary, drawing Darci back through the door to Stuart's hidden apartment.

"Mare?" she asked.

Mary turned to look at her, but given the blank dilation of her pupils and the way her dark blue magic wraithed around her like a ghost effect from a creepy movie, Darci doubted her friend was really seeing her at all. "The ship's landing."

"Uh, yeah." That much had been made obvious.

"The ship is landing here," Mary said.

"Yeah, in Arcadia," Darci agreed. The creepoid traitor alien general was going after Aja and Krel and their parents; where else would he be going?

"What she means," Stuart broke in from behind his VR headset, "is that it looks quite like the touchdown coordinates are going to be in the town square."

Darci blanked. "You mean the town square that is literally one block from here?"

"Yep, that's the one."

Darci said a very short four-letter word and dashed to the front of the shop, closest to the square, hurriedly bolting and latching every single lock Stuart had to secure the place. There was the bulk of the museum between the square and Stuart's shop, but she had no illusions about that keeping them safe. This wasn't going to be like the fight against Gunmar, where they'd had time to prepare and had blocked off the corner exits, making the town square a walled battlefield.

Morando, with his robot minions, weren't going to stay contained.

"Not sure that'll do much good," Stuart called out to her, "but I appreciate the thought!"

"Has this place got a back door?" Darci asked, returning.

"Ye-es." Stuart drawled the word out, his head cocked to the side, still wearing the headset. "Why?"

"Because I am a knight of Arcadia." Darci patted the sword strapped to her hip. "You two are probably gonna be safe in here, but there's a lot of people out there who aren't gonna be. I have to go clear the square."

"Darce!" Mary objected.

"Mary. You have your job. I have mine."

Mary shook her hand free of the archaic TV, leaving a glowing indigo handprint fading on the screen as she scrambled to her feet. "You're going to get yourself killed!"

Darci drew a breath, thinking. She thought about her father. She thought about Toby and Jim. She thought about Claire. And she thought about honor and duty.

She'd seen knights of Camelot die on the battlefield. She'd fought beside them.

She was going to fight now, to protect her town and her people.

"Mary," Darci said softly, "it's not enough to say 'someone's got to do something.' Someone actually has to go do that thing. And right now? That's me."

"One of you," said Mary, searching her face, "against hundreds of them. And Aja says they're unstoppable robots!"

"I know," Darci said softly. "But I can't do nothing."

Mary's expression set, and suddenly Mary's arms were wrapped around her. If she hadn't been wearing armor, Darci suspected the hug would have been crushing. "Krel better get those reinforcements here in time," Mary said into Darci's shoulder. "If he doesn't, I'll kick his skinny royal ass."

"If he doesn't get reinforcements here in time, I suspect there won't be much of him left to kick," said Stuart from behind her.

Darci could tell by the way Mary tensed that she wanted to tell the Durian to shut up. But she didn't, just tried to squeeze Darci tighter.

"Mare-- Mary, you're going to have to let me go." She pushed gently at her friend.

"No I don't," Mary mumbled into her armor. "Ugh, fine." She let Darci push her away. She sniffed and her eyes were bright. Watery. "You'd better not get yourself killed out there," she warned, not meeting Darci's eyes. "I'll come kick your ass."

"I'll try my best," Darci promised. "Stuart, where's the back exit?"

"Behind the counter, three steps on, just past the mini fridge," he reported. "You can't see it from the front door."

"Stay safe," Darci told them, and went to fight for her home.

"Eli!" Krel came skidding into his workspace. "We have to--"

He skidded to a halt, staring.

A dark green glow, deeper by far than Merlin's magic, surrounded Eli as he sat working, carefully fitting one component into the next. Half a dozen items were surrounded by that glow, hovering in the air near the human.

"Eli...?" asked Krel much more carefully, taking a step forward.

"Slot the transducer coil into the aelurion flux generator..." Eli mumbled, almost too quietly to be heard, reaching out and plucking said transducer coil from the air, before fitting it into the proper place. Eyes wide, Krel circled the boy and the bench, eyes flitting back and forth between his friend and his project.

Eli was building... was building one half of the wormhole generator, Krel realized.

Was building it perfectly.

Which should not have been possible. Eli didn't know a quarter of the Akiridion engineering he would need to be able to do this!

But clearly his share of the wizardry blast that had awoken Mother and the Blanks to full sentience had kicked in for Eli, in... whatever form this was.

"All right," said Krel, not wanting to break into Eli's trance. He was rebuilding something that had never been built before in this timeline, and doing it perfectly. They were working on limited time, and if he could finish up the first half while Krel constructed the second, mirrored, half, they'd be so much further ahead.

Eli looked up, his gaze hazy and unfocused behind his optical enhancement devices, the dark brown of his irises almost occluded by the glow of his magic. "Oh, hey, Krel." His voice was also unfocused and distant.

"I see you are doing good work," Krel said carefully, his own hands busy.

Eli's smile was small and bright. He looked just the same at Krel's praise as he did whenever Miss Janeth complimented his work.

What is it about this planet and these people, Krel thought to himself. They are never taught to value themselves properly.

(He ignored the dual facts of both his father, somewhere else in the Mothership and still disapproving of Krel's talents, and of how he himself had discounted the natives of Earth for a long time. Krel had learned and grown since then, okay?!)

"I was just following your instructions," Eli said.

Krel paused. Looked up. "Eli," he said, "I did not give you any instructions. At least not this far."

Eli blinked. Looked down at his work. "Oh." His voice was smaller now.

"But somehow you are doing it perfectly," Krel rushed to assure him. "Which I think may be part of your magic?"

"Magic?" Eli blinked again. "I... I'm just following what you did," he said lamely.

Kleb, why is Douxie not here when Eli is first showing magic? I don't know what his wizardry is doing!

"Well, whatever you are doing," Krel said, "you are doing it just right. Let's see if we can get this finished, okay?"

Eli's smile was smaller now, but back. "Okay," he said, and returned to his project.

Author's Notes: Jim quotes from the movie The Flight of Dragons. And sidewardsly also from Highlander. I'm basing the physical location of Stuart's Electronics on the maps from this Tweet of Aaron Waltke's, and the shop being right by the construction area in episode 2 of Trollhunters. And for those wondering... Eli is something of a Seer in this, expanding on his perhaps not so surprisingly accurate conspiracy board. At the moment he's literally Seeing Krel's work to create the wormhole devices in the original timeline, and following that.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 197/?

sakon76 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 16:01:55 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 20th January, 2026

Between Douxie's necklaces and accompanying note, the magic pulse that had as much rocked Arcadia, and now this lockdown? Jamie was not having a good day.

It was one thing knowing that your coworker was allegedly a student of the Merlin. It was something else entirely to have an old wizard show up in your place of employment, identify himself as Merlin, and demand to know where his apprentice was.

Jamie was no fool and hadn't narc'ed. For one thing, he had no proof the guy was actually Merlin. For another, it was illegal to give out employee information. For a third thing, he had absolutely no idea where Douxie was. Given Douxie was a wizard, for all Jamie knew he could be anywhere on the planet! (And, from what he'd heard, possibly a few places off it as well.)

He told the old guy all of this and watched him as he stalked back upstairs to the roof access.

When he heard the roof door slam shut, Jamie let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and whipped out his phone, texting Douxie for details about what was going on.

He got no answer.

Jamie sighed and stared moodily at the counter of the empty bookstore. His latest read lay open there, but he certainly wasn't going to make more progress on it now.

Green light flashed outside the front windows.

His head snapped up. That came from the roof.

Common sense said to hunker down and stay put. But common sense didn't weigh all that high in the life of someone half raised by an ancient winter wizard.

Jack'll kill me if I get myself killed, Jamie thought, slipping a bookmark between the pages and shutting his book.

Jack would be running right at the problem himself if he was here, and I'd be right behind him.

...Yeah, most of the time it was very obvious that he and his (much) older brother were related.

His book bag slung crosswise over his body, Jamie mouse-footed upstairs.

Claire was as quiet as she knew how to be, barely breathing as she skulked around crystalline corners. Behind her... well, she would have thought Angor Rot wasn't there, if she didn't glance back once in a while.

She was guessing he was a very good assassin for reasons completely unrelated to magic.

She also guessed he and Strickler (and maybe Nomura) might have a lot to talk shop about, once things were all over.

Distracted, she wasn't expecting the blast of gold magic that knocked her off her feet. She fell back, the necklace with her ring flying from her hand and bouncing across the ground to end up in front of a pair of golden boots.

"I thought I heard a mousie skittering about," Morgana's voice mocked through the dusty haze that obscured her. "And, look, it's my treacherous little handmaiden!" Her gaze lifted from Claire's face to Angor's. "And just see who's brought her to me."

Claire had not missed this version of Morgana. "Long time no see," she muttered, getting to her feet and dusting off her skirts. Her butt hurt where she'd landed on it. "Hello, Morgana."

"Come to lock me away again, hmm?" the woman purred, gold light wreathing an emerald hand. Her face shifted to cruelty. "I think not!"

"It was nine hundred years ago and you were trying to kill us," Claire snapped. "Let it go."

Morgana stalked forward, ignoring her words. The clawed tips of her finger armor tilted Claire's chin back and up, magic still gathered around her other hand, a threat. "Has Merlin sent you...?"

Claire scowled. "Merlin can go suck a lemon."

Tap-tap-tap went Morgana's claws on Claire's chin. They felt sharp, but they didn't dig in and draw blood. Not yet. Morgana was biding her time.

Claire could bide her own time and wait too. She had learned a lot from Morgana. More than she had ever learned from Merlin, that was for sure. In some ways, Claire had even learned more from Morgana than she had from Douxie. Which wasn't a fair comparison at all because the subject matter was so very, very different....

"And just where is the great Merlin hiding?" Morgana cooed. "I owe him a... visit."

The thought crossed Claire's mind that she also would like to Rule Three Merlin. But that wasn't what Morgana wanted, nor where she would stop. And downtown Arcadia didn't deserve to be wrecked again in the crossfire of a master wizard battle. It wasn't even fully cleaned up from the fight with Gunmar yet!

"I wouldn't tell you even if I knew," Claire sassed.

Behind Morgana, a shadow shifted.

Claire's eyes widened.

"Perhaps," said Dictatious, coming forward, "the information may be... extracted from her, my lady."

Morgana's cruel smile turned into a snarl. Her gaze flicked up from Claire's face to Angor Rot, standing right behind her. "Seize her," Morgana commanded. "I have questions for the girl."

To Claire's shock, Angor obeyed, his bony hand grabbing her wrists, pulling her arms tight behind her back, hauling her backwards (she stumbled) against his body.

"Good," Morgana purred, holding magic flame in her hand. "Hold still, little handmaiden. This won't hurt... much."

I talked Arthur into fighting at Killahead. I talked the Guardians of Arcadia into destroying Gaylen's core. I was born with a silver tongue in my head. I can do this! But faced with Skrael's stubborn unwillingness to bend, Douxie wasn't sure how.

If I can just do this... it'll pay for everything I've done.

"Give humanity one century," he pleaded. "A measly one hundred years! It'll pass like the blink of an eye. Let them get used to having their magic back and see who they'll become with it. Then judge them."

"You ask for more time," Skrael growled. "We have given them millennia and they have only grown worse."

"They didn't have their magic then! They were crippled, wounded - you know how an injured animal will lash out!"

"Irrelevant," Skrael dismissed Douxie's argument with an icy blast.

"Enough!" barked Merlin. The butt of his staff slammed to the ground, its Fae-iron ringing. "Hisirdoux, the gods will not listen. We must defend humanity!"

He stared aghast, gape-mouthed, at his mentor. "Locking gods away is not the answer!" Douxie snapped. "It's part of the reason we've got so many problems to begin with. How can people get used to magic, comfortable with it, if they never see it?"

"That," said Merlin crisply, "is not my concern."

"Well, maybe it bloody well should be!"

The gods were watching the master wizards argue. Nari's eyes were wide. Bellroc seemed bemused. Skrael's scowl spoke for itself.

"I will not be gainsaid by my own apprentice! I have spent millennia watching magic fade from this world--"

"No," Douxie interrupted. If Merlin was going to be overblown, he was going to be pedantic. "You spent six hundred years watching magic fade. And then nine hundred years in a coma."

"I was monitoring the situation--"

"Maybe," said Douxie. "But you didn't wake up, Master. You were healed centuries ago, we both know that. But you chose to keep sleeping."

"I waited," Merlin said icily, "until the strategic day that I had foreseen--"

"You waited," Archie said, leaping down from Douxie's shoulder and stalking forward, shedding his feline guise for his draconic one, "until children needed to beg the great master wizard for help. I do think you could have stepped in quite a bit earlier, if you'd actually cared."

"Archibald--"

"You blamed me," Douxie said quietly, "for letting magic fade from this world. But what have you done, Master, to preserve it?"

Merlin suddenly looked drawn, his face gaunt and old. "A wizard's place is to stand between man and magic, and defend one against the other."

Douxie and Archie exchanged a look. "But now that magic is returned to mankind," said Archie gently, "what then?"

Jim was faster than Arthur. Whether or not it was going to be fast enough... well, that was another question.

Also, a pair of glaives against Excalibur was stupid. But Jim had never let that stop him before. "You were a terrible king, you know?" he baited, dodging. Douxie had said different, that Arthur had been a good king for humans... but anyone who would prioritize humans and persecute magic beings? Jim wasn't going to count Arthur as good. Was he racist? Maybe not. But he'd been speciesist and, worse, genocidal.

"Be silent!" snapped Arthur.

Anger was sparking in Jim's heart, and he was trying his best to keep it contained. To think, fight, and speak with logic. But it was hard, faced with Arthur. And not even with the man who had fought beside the trolls, had tried to reconcile with Morgana - no, this was his shade. His vessel. In raising him from the dead, the Arcane Order had stripped out everything that had made him good and memorable, and left an empty, angry puppet. "Protecting one little city?" Jim taunted. "One tiny geographical area? So sad."

Arthur swung again. "My kingdom was vast! The greatest in the British isles!"

They were out from under the bridge now, away from the entrance to Trollmarket. The sunlight felt gloriously warm on Jim's armor. He was just getting started. "Pfft. Wales is one thing, but you didn't even rule all of Britain."

"It was to be a mere matter of time, boy."

Jim could have laughed as he danced farther and farther out of range. Drawing Arthur away from his target. There were people up on the bridge, watching, but the sun was behind them and Jim couldn't make them out from this distance. He hoped they weren't going to try to do something stupid, like interfere. "One city? One kingdom? One people?" Jim shook his head. "What are you even fighting for?"

"I fight," snarled the Green Knight, "for the glory of my masters. They will purge this planet and make it anew. With no twisted, half-breed flaws!"

"Is that supposed to hurt me?" Jim wondered. "Because I've heard worse. A lot worse."

"Foul beast," declared Arthur.

"Go look in a mirror," replied Jim, catching Excalibur's tainted blade between the cross of his glaives and guiding it aside as he moved ever backward. "I fight for the good of all." His amulet, inscribed with that vow, gleamed in the sunlight.

He wasn't just the Trollhunter, protecting a single species. He was a divine king. "Merlin believed in you and you failed him. This whole world is mine to protect," Jim growled, the green gem in his circlet glowing. He could see its light shining on Arthur's helm. "And I'll stand between it and anything that would harm it." Meaning, at the moment, Arthur.

His glaives vanished.

He raised his hand.

Crackling with divine energy, Excalibur manifested in his grasp.

"Your time is done," Jim informed King Arthur. "It's our time now."

Mother had come to the conclusion that the energy wave which she had detected had been of magical origins, as it had gone through all of her safety shields and somehow supercharged the regeneration chambers, resulting in the King and Queen's cores being completely healed.

It was logical that magic was unlike other forms of energy in that the magical burst had somehow done something to her, giving her full awareness in a way that she had not had before. Ricky and Lucy, the two active blanks, had also seemingly achieved sapience.

Full sentience, Mother found, came with an awareness of pain.

It was not pleasant.

"Ricky! Stabilize the Kelvoid superstructure while reroute the influx from the manifold," commanded Prince Krel.

"Right-o, champ!" Grinning, the blank set to work.

It took a few sektons (seemingly interminable at the speed at which Mother processed data), but then, blessedly, the knowledge of the damage became numb. As though it was held back behind a firewall.

She did not sigh with relief, though she wanted to. "The damaged area is sectioned off," she reported to the prince.

"Good! Lucy, I need you to--"

Mother paid only half her attention to the prince, focusing the rest on her outer sensors, where Princess Aja had stealthed her way out onto the pool deck and waited crouched behind the fence as Varvatos Vex opened the front door and stepped outside, seeming no more than a crouched old geezer.

"Your Majesties," said Zadra, "I must ask you to stand behind the blinds, not in plain view of these bounty hunters."

"We wish to observe Aja's improvement," said Queen Coranda mildly.

Zadra gritted her teeth. "I will remind your Majesties," she said, "that these bounty hunters are scum, who have no morals and will stoop to any depth to achieve their goals. And General Morando has sent them after you."

There was a moment's silence before King Fialkov nodded, granting her point, and stepped aside, concealing himself from the view of the Zeron Brotherhood. With a sigh, Queen Coranda did the same.

"Oh no no no," Mary said breathlessly. "The ship is on the move!"

"I see it," said Stuart. She could feel him in the satellite's systems with her. He was also sitting in his plush chair behind her in his apartment back on Earth. Being split in two places like this made Mary feel dizzy if she thought about it, so she didn't.

Don't think. Become, she thought to herself instead, which was something she'd heard Jim and the others say multiple times. It seemed to have some special meaning, and if it worked for them, it was going to work for her. Mary would force it to.

"Is he breaking orbit, or...?"

"That," said Stuart solemnly, "looks very much like a landing maneuver. General Morando is coming to Earth."

"Kleb," said Mary, her fingers on Earth already dialing Aja's phone number to relay the news.

Krel had left him to keep working on the wormhole device while he patched up the holes attackers had apparently made in the Mothership's infrastructure.

On one hand, this was all deeply cool. On the other hand....

Eli breathed deeply, trying to force himself to be calm. Sure, he knew a little about Akiridion technology, but he was still just a beginner. Multiple promises that he would someday build a real life Gun Robot aside... he just didn't know enough about this to finish up Krel's work!

"Okay," he told himself. "You don't have to finish it. Just do the parts that you know you can do."

Put like that, it became a little easier. Slot the transwarp drive into the oscillation overthruster. Use Krel's really-klebbing-cool sonic screwdriver to tighten the clamps and then fine-tune the connections.

"No no no..." Eli whispered. "No, the other way..."

The polarities flipped, then realigned themselves.

He let out a breath. "Okay, next is...." He blinked. "Oh, I know!" It was suddenly obvious. He reached for one of the many parts that were still littering Krel's work surface. It was heavier than he had expected. "What is this, titanium?" Eli asked, adjusting his glasses. "Oh, it's a gold-titanium alloy. Nice." He went on working.

He didn't notice the deep green glow around his hands, or the corresponding one emanating from his eyes. It just all seemed simple, when he really thought about it. One obvious step after another.

He loved being in the flow!

Oh crap, thought Jamie from where he had the roof door open just a crack. I guess that old guy really was Merlin.

And he'd found Douxie, or Douxie had shown up anyway, which Douxie admittedly did have a tendency to do. The two of them were arguing, starting to tear verbal strips off one another about the relationship between Man and Magic, Gods and Mortals--

Jamie swallowed, getting by context that the three figures standing between him and the two other wizards might very well be gods. He'd never met a god, and wasn't sure he wanted to. Everyone knew gods were dangerous and capricious. A fact which was borne out when one of them, the pale one swathed in black, wearing some kind of skull for a helmet, growled and slammed the butt of his staff to the ground. A blast of purest winter's cold blasted out from that point of contact, ice spiking up from the roof and down from the eaves of the access. The plants in their tubs and pots were instantly frozen over.

Beth was going to be pissed.

"Enough," the god snapped. "This pathetic bickering will sway me no more than your alleged history lesson." His black eyes snapped to the small green figure who stood by Douxie's side. "Nari, we are done with this rebellion. You will come with us now, and once we three are reunited, we will mend this broken world."

The red-haired figure, who wore what looked like a cape of raven feathers, tilted their head wordlessly. They extended a hand to the green girl - presumably Nari.

Douxie's hand clenched on hers.

"I will not come," Nari enunciated clearly. "I will have no part of destroying what has grown."

"You," growled Skrael, "will come!" This time the blast of cold was infinitely stronger, coating the roof in slick ice, freezing wind howling in its wake. There was something desperate in his voice. "You have to. There is no other option--"

The lone figure standing in the middle of the snow and ice triggered something for Jamie.

"It was dark, and it was cold, and I was scared."

Jack had told him that, years ago.

"But then, then I saw the moon. It was so big, and it was so bright, it seemed to chase the darkness away. And when it did, I wasn't scared anymore."

Jamie, always imaginative, hadn't had to work hard to picture it. A young teenager, lost in the winter woods. Jack had tapped his nose, and his sister's, snowflakes sparking briefly to life in their living room as their ever-so-great-uncle told them about the night he'd discovered his magic.

Jamie hadn't understood, then, what having enough magic for immortality meant for Jack. The way he'd outlived generation after generation of his own sister's children, but kept coming back because they were his family.

He also hadn't quite understood the way Jack had been so happy, and so horrified, the day that Jamie had turned out to be a wizard too, the first in the entire extended Overland clan in three hundred years.

Happy, because it meant that finally Jack might have family he could keep.

Horrified because Jack had never wanted anyone else to lose everyone the way he did.

It had built, and built, until finally Jack broke and caused a spectacular blizzard when Jamie had been ten.

He remembered trudging out in the wind and snow, to find a lone figure screaming all his hurt out into the weather.

It was that memory that caught his breath now and sent him surging out the roof door, toward the figure in black that might or might not be a god, but was in so much pain--

"Jamie, no!"

Ignoring Douxie's panicked shout, Jamie wrapped his arms around black-clad shoulders, and held on.

Mother's camouflage matrix was very good. The fence around the pool area looked like it was made out of Earth wood planks. Including some curious holes that seemed to happen in Earth wood. Aja didn't know why they happened, but they were very convenient. She put her eye against one of them now, assessing the situation. Stuart's junker still sat in the carport, disguised as an elderly Earth vehicle, blocking her view, but if she just....

Moving to another knothole (why were they called not-holes when they most definitely were holes?), Aja finally got a glimpse of the situation.

Zerons Beta and Omega stood in the street. Beta was snarling, claws twitching. Omega stood very, very still. Her tail had not fully regenerated yet. Was it affecting her balance? Maybe, Aja thought. But she certainly could not rely on that to tip the battle.

"--back for another round?" Varvatos was demanding from the front door. "Very well!" A flash of blue gave away his transformation. She could hear as he pounded one fist into another. "If the Zeron Brotherhood wishes to become extinct in its entirety, Varvatos Vex will certainly oblige!"

"Oh, this should be good," Aja muttered to herself. She pulled her serrator out, ready to join in once the fight began. Wait for the opportune moment, she counseled herself. You need to be patient.

Ugh. I hate being patient.

Varvatos screamed his battle cry and charged toward the Zerons.

Gripping her serrator tightly, Aja prepared to jump the fence--

Her communications device trilled.

"Not now!" she hissed, scrabbling for her pocket. The ring tone was going to give away her position!

"Aja!" Mary's voice shot out of the device.

"Mary, this is not a good time--"

"Morando's ship is preparing to land!"

Aja froze. "What?"

"And given his trajectory," Stuart's voice added in the background, "he is heading straight for Arcadia Oaks."

Oh, this was not good, Krel was not finished with his wormhole device--

"Hold still, you misbegotten cretin!" Varvatos bellowed. Their neighbors were probably watching from the meager safety of their own homes, glass and walls a flimsy shield against interstellar bounty hunters.

"Mary, I have to go," Aja said, and hung up on Mary's squawk, shoving the communicator back in her pocket.

Fight the Zerons first. Worry about Morando after.

Blue light flashed again, but this time it wasn't Varvatos.

Aja turned, blinking. "Tronos Madu...?" she asked the red creature that stood beside the pool.

He grinned. Or at least she assumed it was a grin. "Hello, Princess."

"Technically, you know, I am not a princess," said Aja, standing up straight, back now to the fence. "I am a Queen-in-Waiting."

"Nuance," said Tronos.

"The difference is small, though legally significant," Aja allowed. "I will not assume this timing is a coincidence." She gestured toward the fence and by implication the battle she could hear beyond. "Are you using the Zerons, or are they using you?"

Tronos' glowing gold eyes never strayed from her. "You seem sure that I am not their ally."

"Are you?"

He did not answer, only hummed in a different way than electricity hummed.

Tronos stepped closer to her. She did not step back, did not flinch. Not even when his hand came up, claws cupping her chin. He wasn't crackling with voltage yet; surely, Aja thought, that must be a good sign?

"You lack fear," he observed.

"Oh, I am very afraid," Aja admitted, because she was. He could kill her. He might still kill her. She was letting him in close and raising neither weapon nor shield against him. "But... fear is but the precursor to valor," she said softly, thinking of her friends. "And to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what makes us heroes."

"You think you are a hero?" Tronos' voice was dripping with derision.

"I know I am," said Aja. "One of many."

He stared into her eyes a moment longer, then tore away, his claws ripping through the stones on the house's facade. Chips clattered, spraying the ground even as dust floated in the air.

Aja waited.

"You," Tronos growled, "are insufferable."

"I am sorry for what my parents did," said Aja quietly. "If it would bring back your planet, your family... I would give my life to you. But it will not."

His hands flexed, claws clicking softly together.

"General Morando is on his way," Aja felt obliged to inform him. "He will be landing soon." In another timeline, Tronos Madu had chosen the path of heroism, but he had died at Morando's hands. Krel had only told her this later, information he had obtained from Sergeant Costas of Area 51-B. We should never have left you behind. I hope we can do better by you this time. "He will judge you by your failure."

Golden eyes narrowed. "You seem sure of that."

"I am."

His chin lifted; his weight shifted. Still, she did not move. She did not think he was going to attack. "I could capture you now."

"You could," Aja allowed. "Why haven't you?"

Silence.

She took a step closer. "Why do you hesitate, if that is truly your goal?"

A longer silence.

Aja waited.

"It will not... bring them back," Tronos Madu said. Something in his voice was broken, throbbing with pain.

Aja bowed her head and closed her eyes, acknowledging his loss. "I cannot restore what was lost. I can only offer support to rebuild that which remains." Her eyes met his. "I am not my parents," said Aja. "I will not stand idly by when I can help."

Another moment of waiting. The sektons ticked by, as slow as the dripping of some viscous fluid. Aja could hear the sound of Varvatos engaged in glorious two-on-one battle, apparently having the time of his life.

Finally, Tronos Madu spoke. "I accept your offer." His gold gaze bored into hers. He made a small bow. "Queen-in-Waiting."

Author's Notes: Another chapter that fought me. The closer we get to the end, the more the story seems to do that, despite my knowing where it's going! Jim saying "It's our time now" is an homage to The Goonies. A lot of the technobabble in Eli's section is from various science fiction series: transwarp drive (Star Trek), oscillation overthruster (Buckaroo Banzai), sonic screwdriver (Dr. Who), and gold-titanium alloy (Iron Man). Jack's backstory is obviously taken from Rise of the Guardians. Aja waiting for the opportune moment references Pirates of the Caribbean, and Tronos Madu's "Nuance" is from Tangled.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 196/?

sakon76 — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 14:13:17 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 23rd January, 2026

Douxie did not believe in karma. Oh, he thought the concept was charming enough: whatever you put into the world came back to you. But he'd lived too long, through too much shit, to give credence to any scales of cosmic justice or anything like that.

What he did believe in, was people.

There were always some who were going to be sadists or fanatics, assholes or just plain jerks. But most people... were simply people. No matter what they were shaped like. If you were kind and decent to them, the odds were good that you'd find some of that mirrored back at yourself.

Before, he'd relied on trickery and entrapment to deal with the Arcane Order. Merlin's methods, with an added twist of his own particular expertise at Lad O' Fortune.

But I'm not Merlin.

This time... Douxie had to have faith that Bellroc and Skrael were just people. Despite their differences, he knew Nari still loved them, and surely she wouldn't if there was nothing there to love.

The greatest thing you will ever learn, is simply to love, and be loved in return.

Nebulous thoughts whirled around in his head, a maelstrom of how do I do this? where nothing caught. At least, not until one thing he'd been told surfaced.

"To share," Taliesin had said. "To share your soul through your art. That is bardic magic."

And what was a soul, after all, but the truth of who you were?

Faith and trust and pixie dust...

Douxie didn't look at Merlin. He couldn't, afraid of what he might see there.

Archie was a solid weight on his shoulder. Comforting, reassuring.

One of the very few things that had never changed.

"My lords and ladies," Douxie began, with a flourishing bow to the gods and master wizard who stood there, ready to judge, "allow me to tell you a story. The tale of how mankind lost their magic - and regained it."

Jim's breath was short. His blood pounded in his ears, ringing.

He was quicker than Arthur. Taller by a few inches. Possibly stronger? Douxie and Blinky had separately given him somewhat different talks on what they both referred to as the "hybrid vigor" of his half-troll form. But it wasn't like Jim had ever settled down for a session with Coach Lawrence to figure out what he could bench press.

Maybe he should do that sometime. If he survived this.

Balancing out those strengths was the fact that King Arthur was literally a zombie, brought back to life by evil magic and nearly impossible to kill. Morgana had managed it by dropping an entire castle on him. ("Squish," as Aaarrrgghh had described it.)

Jim was a little shy on castles right now.

He was dodging, because Arthur's version of Excalibur was coated in what Douxie called voidstone. An utter antithesis to magic. In the previous timeline, it had been the basis of Krel's anti-magic ray.

Jim was well aware he was a creature of magic right now.

If I could get him to take off his helmet, I could cut off his head--

Memory flashed. Claire in Camelot, with a book on her lap, explaining the Arthurian legend of The Green Knight to him. When Gawain had cut off his head, she'd said, the immortal knight had picked up his head under one arm and told Gawain to meet him again the following winter so that he could return the favor.

Jim felt sick. If the story was anywhere near true, even cutting off Arthur's head wouldn't do anything.

"Stop cowering, boy," commanded the undead king, "and fight!"

If Arthur had any voice of command, Jim couldn't hear it. Not that it had ever worked on him anyhow.

"I will wager," Douxie had told him, "Excalibur versus Excalibur will give a divine screeching feedback, so be ready for that."

But the problem with the element of surprise was that you could only use it once. Jim didn't want to tip his hand if he didn't have to.

Growling, he summoned his glaives to his hands, and sprang forward, hoping that his speed would get him inside Arthur's reach before the undead king could react.

Toby followed Blinky, running as fast as the troll did and, hey, not even feeling out of breath! Score one for physical conditioning, aka their mentor cheerfully trying to kill him and Jim in the Hero's Forge every time he got the opportunity. Not to mention the knights and Gumm-Gumms of Ancient Old People Times trying to do the same. Steve lagged behind him and Blinky, already whining.

"Come on, Steve, keep up!" Toby cheered/jeered.

"Screw you, Dumbzalski!" Steve put on a burst of speed. "I just got back from the twelfth century!"

"Duh, me too, dude!"

"You should probably be easier on him, Master Toby," Blinky advised as they came in sight of Trollmarket's main cavern. "You and Master Jim are accustomed to the weight of armor; few of your compatriots can claim the same."

"Yeah, all right," Toby grumbled. Blinky did have a point. But after years of Steve's attitude, he felt like he was justified in briefly reveling that the shoe was now on the other foot.

Trolls clustered in the center of the market, surrounding Vendel, Aaarrrgghh, and Draal, demanding answers. As they caught sight of Toby, they turned to him as well, with cries of "The Trollhunter! He will know what is happening."

Toby, however, was notably shorter than the crowd, and quickly swallowed by it.

"Uh, Wingman?" he asked as he reached Aaarrrgghh.

The Krubera smiled broadly, clearly pleased that Toby was back from his little vanishing jaunt courtesy of Gaylen's Core. And that, by implication, so were all the others.

"Can I get a boost?" asked Toby as a group of gnomes ran by, carrying what seemed to be some sort of statue. Probably stolen from Bagdwella's shop, Toby mused. She was distressed enough that she wasn't even shrieking about it.

"Like rats from a sinking ship," Blinky growled, his gaze following the gnomes as they booked it out of downtown Trollmarket.

A warm stone hand grasped Toby and lifted him, right onto Aaarrrgghh's back. Toby shifted, gaining his balance atop the mossy green mane. From here he was taller than everyone else, which was a novel sensation. From here he could also see all the residents of Trollmarket, looking up at him. Even Steve was looking up at him, which was a weird sensation.

They were all expecting answers. And Jim was expecting him to talk them into being ready to fight.

Toby's mouth went dry. No pressure, he thought.

He took a deep breath.

I don't need fancy words or Jim's mystical king power, he thought. I'm a Trollhunter. And I understand these guys better than Jim does. Better than Deya did, even! Because she'd spent most of her life locked up in Camelot's dungeons and had still managed to get everyone to follow her to fight at Killahead Bridge.

Toby's shoulders lowered.

If Deya could do this, so can I.

"Listen up, rockheads!"

That gained their interest, and stillness.

"Oh, well begun, Master Toby," Blinky murmured.

Toby ignored him, and continued. "That blast of magic was Jim breaking Gaylen's Core to return all the stolen magic to humans."

Questions of "stolen magic? what magic?" and "nonsense! balderdash!" rippled through the crowd.

"What, exactly, is Gaylen's Core?" asked Draal. Presumably for their audience.

"A magic crystal," Toby shorthanded. "The dude - Gaylen - stole humans' magic eight thousand years ago, turned himself and a bunch of other people into crystals, and fucked off to the cosmos to destroy stars and build planets there. After he got deep-sixed by one of his own people, they brought what remained of him back to Earth for safe keeping. We destroyed his core to (a) make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands, and (b) give humans back what was taken from them."

"Humans with magic?" shrilled Bagdwella. "We're all doomed!"

"WIZARDS," Toby yelled over the sudden cacophony as Vendel banged his staff on the ground, demanding silence and not getting much of it.

Steve was pressing into Aaarrrgghh, looking fearful in the face of the panicking trolls.

Blinky coughed into his fist. "Aarghaumont, if you would."

Aaarrrgghh stood up straight on his hind legs, making Toby have to grab for his horns to stay upright. "QUIET!" he bellowed.

Silence fell abruptly.

"Thank you, Wingman," said Toby as Aaarrrgghh lowered himself back to all fours.

Aaarrrgghh gave a pleased nod.

"There's a word for humans with magic," Toby said. "It's 'wizards.' How many of them do you have problems with?"

There was murmuring, trolls shifting from foot to foot as they looked at one another.

"I'm not going to promise it's going to be simple, or easy," said Toby. "I don't think it can be. But I think giving humans back something they lost, something that was stolen from them, might make this world a better place. A place where trolls don't have to hide from humans." He smiled. "After all, you let me and Jim and our friends in, and nothing's gone wrong yet, right?"

"Yeah!" Steve spoke up. "I totally don't know what having magic's going to be like," he told the trolls closest to him, "but I bet it's going to be awesome!" He puffed out his chest. "Because now I'm not gonna be weaker and so scared all the time."

Toby blinked.

"Aw, nothing wrong with you," said one of the trolls, patting Steve on the armored shoulder and nearly knocking him over. "Can't help it that you're just a little thing."

"See, that's what I'm talking about!" Steve's eyes blazed as he ducked out from under the hand and knife-handed the offending appendage away. "One on one, you guys could bowl me over and smush me flat! And you wonder why humans are scared of, of, trolls and talking dragons and everything that's bigger and stronger than us?"

Given the way the trolls blinked and murmured to themselves, this was clearly something they'd never considered before.

"Maybe if humans have magic again, we won't be as scared of things any more," Steve continued. "And if we're not so scared, maybe we won't be so...."

"...Mean," finished Toby, staring at Steve.

Oh.

Hisirdoux concluded his fantastical tale of what had really happened to Atlantis with a flourishing bow. Always the performer, Merlin thought dourly. Always seeking praise.

"And how," Merlin demanded before the Arcane Order could, "came you by this knowledge, Hisirdoux?"

His one-time apprentice, now a master wizard in his own right, straightened. His lips were pressed together; for a moment, Merlin thought he would get no answer. Then, wordlessly, Hisirdoux drew out a necklace from under his shirt.

Time stopped for a heartbeat.

And started again.

"Where-- where did you get that?" Merlin demanded, staring at the pendant he hadn't seen in fifteen centuries.

Hisirdoux's eyes met his, then glanced away. "Taliesin left it for me. Along with a message about everything I've just said."

Merlin couldn't help reaching out toward the pendant. "Then he's...."

"He's dead," Hisirdoux replied. "He met his end long ago, at... at the hands of a vengeful deity."

In a way, Merlin had known that. For a thousand and a half years, he'd never heard a whisper of his own master, not even a rumor. He'd known Taliesin had surely been dead. Or trapped somewhere. But most likely dead.

Grief still welled up at the confirmation.

"Why would he leave a message for you, boy?" asked Skrael, asking what Merlin would have, had he but been granted a moment more.

Hisirdoux laughed, but it sounded hollow. "Because since Gaylen bloody well stole our magic, there's only been a handful of wizards born each century," he spat. "I was the closest to an Atlantean sorcerer Taliesin could foresee. To being a proper bardic mage." His staff manifested in his hand; transmuted into some sort of lute; vanished again. "But even that, Gaylen denied me. Until we destroyed his core." His eyes met Merlin's again. Blazing in them was the fire, the determination that had earned him his mastery. "Taliesin said I'm supposed to fix this. Fix the world."

Nari reached out, curled her small green hand in his. "But not alone," she said.

Softening, Hisirdoux gave her a smile.

"Our goals are the same," mused Skrael. "We, too, seek to fix the world...."

Merlin's eyes blazed, as did the emerald in his staff. "You do not seek to fix it!" he snapped at the god. "You seek only to end it!"

"A clean slate," Skrael dismissed. "We shall rebuild it better. Without the flaws of any human... hubris." He said the word disdainfully, looking at Douxie. "And now... Nari shall come with us."

The bounty hunters, unsurprisingly, were useless. As was their information. They weren't worth their pay. Val Morando could almost smell the intoxicants wafting off their base on this planet's ridiculously oversized moon.

He entertained a momentary vision of, on his way out of the system, bombarding the base, destroying everyone and everything within.

But, he might still need bounty hunters at some future date, and destroying a good part of their guild was not likely to lead to favored employer status. While none of them were as brutally overwhelming as the OMENs, they were still clever creatures, and good at tracking down his enemies.

Val let the vision go.

"Set down on the planet's surface," he instructed the helmsman. "Near the Tarrons' last known coordinates."

"But sir, we still don't know--"

He fixed the being with a gimlet eye. "Do I need to repeat myself?" he asked, voice very quiet.

"N-no, sir," the helmsman stuttered. Ze turned back to zheir holoscreen and zheir hands began moving over the controls, a spindly-fingered dance.

Val observed them for a moment, then looked at the main screen. At the pathetic watery dirtball of an uncivilized planet to which the Tarrons had fled. Lights glittered on the dark side, vanishing as the globe rotated, its daylight side coming into view.

The Tarrons were so close he could taste his victory. And with their deaths, the last hope of the resistance would die.

The executions needed to be both decisive, and decisively broadcast to the populace of Akiridion-5.

Val began to smile.

"That is... the Zeron Brotherhood," Fialkov said, staring out the window.

"I had thought they were a triad," Coranda murmured at his side. "Where is Zeron Alpha?"

"Oh, he is dead." Aja's hands were tucked behind her back as she cheerfully rocked on her heels. She glanced sideways at her parents. "Very dead."

Fialkov's head whipped to the side as he stared at his daughter. "Aja, are you saying that you--"

"Oh, not me," Aja said, waving a hand in a gesture that was far too casual for the subject of the conversation. "Two of our allies on this planet. Kanjigar's son Draal and his... what would you call Nomura?" she asked Varvatos.

"Varvatos," that individual replied, "would call her glorious trouble."

Aja laughed at that. "True!"

Fialkov felt himself relaxing at the fact that his daughter had not directly faced one of the deadliest bounty hunters in the galaxy.

"Of course, I did slice off Zeron Omega's tail," Aja added thoughtfully. "It looks like it has not fully regenerated yet."

Coranda recovered faster. "When was this?"

"A few wardons ago. This planet is most lively. Mother, are you all right?"

The ship's artificial intelligence responded, its voice warped, static stuttering. "That is uncertain. The Zerons have neutralized my outer shields."

"Not good," said Aja, her expression shifting to darkness. "Krel! How long until your wormhole generator thingy is complete?"

"I need more time!" Krel replied, his voice echoing through the Mothership's internal communications rig. "Eli, can you keep working on this while I reroute power to Mother's shields? Otherwise the Zerons will try to blow us all up."

"You've got it!" the human's voice replied, cheerful and determined.

Something still niggled. "How do you know Kanjigar?" Fialkov asked his daughter.

"That," said Aja, "is a long story. Varvatos, will you fight by my side?"

Varvatos Vex bowed to the mere slip of a girl. "It would be Varvatos' honor."

"Wait just a mekron--" Fialkov started.

Coranda's hand on his arm stilled him. "Fialkov," she said, something calculating in her expression. "Let them try. We will see how much Aja has grown."

Fialkov grated for a moment. This was his daughter! His little girl. His heir.

But Coranda often saw things he did not. He trusted her. She was his queen. "Very well," he said. "But we will step in ourselves the moment you need us." He spoke more to Varvatos than to Aja.

"Varvatos thinks you will be most pleased with the Queen-in-Waiting's performance." He turned to Aja. "Varvatos will greet our visitors at the front door."

"Excellent." Aja's broad smile had teeth. "I will come from the pool area."

Her phone rang as Nomura took a left, heading back toward the east side of town. It was a distinctive ringtone. She scowled and answered, putting the call on speaker. "Where the hell have you been?"

"India," Strickler's carefully cultured British accent replied. In the background, she could hear people hustling and bustling. There was a particular echo-y quality to the sound that told her he was in the Janus Order's hidden underground HQ. "Where are you, Nomura?"

"Driving," she bit back. "You remember all those proto-changelings the green brat wanted to rescue?"

(An indignant "Oi!" sounded from the back seat.)

Zelda ignored him. "Well, he succeeded. He and your girlfriend and I have been driving around, checking up on all thirty-four of them."

"Yeah, and I gotta tell you, boss-man, Nomura here ain't got a maternal stone in her body," called NotEnrique.

She rolled her eyes. "I don't need one, as long as I get things done."

"You are good at task management," Barbara, in the passenger seat, soothed her.

"Barbara...?" Strickler asked.

Annoyance and anger flashed across the doctor's face. "You owe me, Walter. A date at the least. With. With flowers and wine or something," the doctor informed him. "And a very good explanation. You're also not allowed to leave again without at least two weeks' written notice." Her voice was sharp with something that might be hurt. Or betrayal. Zelda wasn't sure which.

Strickler seemed taken aback. "I... I apologize," he said. "I...."

"We'll discuss it later," she told him crisply. "I assume you're back?"

"Newly so," he replied. "With a new... ally."

Zelda exchanged a look with Barbara. "You don't sound certain," she pointed out.

Zelda could practically hear his grimace. "Angor Rot seems willing to work with us for now."

She nearly drove the car off the road. The vehicle certainly swerved. "Angor Rot?!" Zelda demanded. "Strickler--!"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," he snapped back. "With the young king absent and would-be assassins about, we needed reinforcements."

"Well, Jim's back again," piped up NotEnrique.

"And gone again and back yet again, apparently," rejoined Strickler.

"What?" demanded Barbara.

Zelda ignored that. "Your assassin?" she asked.

"Dealt with," Strickler replied, with that in his tone which meant fatally neutralized.

"Good," Zelda told him before the other two could process his meaning. "So what do you need?"

"Why, Nomura," he said, "why ever do you think I need something?"

"Because you never call me to socialize," she replied.

He sighed. "So mercenary," he complained without heat. Then his tone shifted serious again. "That energy blast has freed the Pale Lady from her confines, and Young Atlas and his group believe the Arcane Order is en route to Arcadia."

In the back seat, NotEnrique used a word that would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap, if he'd been human. As it was, the odds were good that the little cretin would like the taste of soap.

"Also," Strickler continued, "there may be an imminent alien invasion related to the Tarrons' troubles. Thus, I am tasked with getting civilians to safety."

Zelda bit her lip against the inelegant word that wanted to erupt from her mouth. In her peripheral vision, Barbara had paled.

"You have to get me to the hospital--" the doctor started.

"Like hell," Zelda bit out. "I have to get you to your home--"

"They'll need me!"

"Your sons need you to stay safe!" Zelda snapped.

Blue eyes flashed. "I have a duty!"

"There are other doctors! There is only one you!" Zelda's voice rang off the walls of her car.

Barbara stared at her, shocked.

"Hey." A seat belt clicked, unfastening, in the back of the car. NotEnrique slid forward, standing on the seat and leaning between the two of them as Zelda drove just a few miles more above the speed limit. "Moms are important, ya know?" he asked Barbara. "I just got one, but if anything happened to her...."

Barbara swallowed. "I can't stand by and do nothing," she said hoarsely.

"I know," said NotEnrique, his claws resting lightly on Barbara's shoulder. "Where do you think your kid gets it from? But the scary pink lady's got a point," he added. "The hospital's on the other side of town, and we're almost to your home. Which your other kid slapped up all of those safety wards on. Your best bet, doc-lady? Get inside. Stay low. Then when the dust's blown over, you can help people. Okay?"

Barbara wanted to fight the brat's words. Zelda could see it on her face. But whether she liked it or not, his logic was sound. After a few seconds, Barbara sighed and slumped. "Fine," she said, rubbing at her arm. The one that had been so recently shot. She was somewhere between grumpy and pouting as she looked out the car window. At least, Zelda thought, she didn't seem like she was scheming to get out and back into town once she'd been dropped off.

"Thank you, my dear," said Strickler through the phone's speaker as they approached the canal bridge. "Nomura, NotEnrique--"

"Stop the car!" Barbara suddenly snapped.

"What?"

"Stop the car!" Barbara repeated, sounding urgent.

Zelda yanked the wheel to the right and hit the brakes. Barbara was unbuckled and out the door almost before the vehicle had come to a stop.

"What's going on?" Strickler demanded.

"Hell if I know," Zelda replied, unbuckling and grabbing the phone out of the cup holder as NotEnrique began wrapping himself up in his burqa again.

Barbara was already at the bridge's side, gripping the railing with her hands and looking down into the canal.

Zelda followed her gaze.

"Fuck," she said.

"Nomura? Nomura, what's going on?" demanded Strickler.

She swallowed. "Jim Lake is battling... someone down in the canal," she reported.

"It's the Green Knight," whispered Barbara. "It's King Arthur."

"Skrael!" Nari's voice cracked like a whip as she turned to face her brother, eyes blazing. "You gave your word!"

"And you gave yours," he replied levelly, "first."

She bared her teeth. "My deal," she reminded him while Douxie's heart pounded, "was that you would listen. You are not listening!"

"I have listened," Skrael said, his voice like a ghost wind. "And I am not swayed."

"And I have listened," Bellroc growled. Nari shifted to face them, the sibling who had remained silent up until now.

"And?" Douxie asked, heart in his throat.

Bellroc was silent for a long moment, then shifted their weight. "We, too, once lost something precious to us." Their blind gaze made it clear they meant Nari. "And that loss caused us to behave... badly."

Nari beamed. Douxie felt like he might be able to breathe again. He hadn't expected it of Bellroc, but....

If two of the Arcane Order stand on our side, we might have a chance.

Nari glowered. Her pout was adorable. "You did behave very badly," she chided. "Bringing people back to life is not part of your domain!"

Bellroc shrugged. "At the time, it seemed expedient."

"Bellroc!" Skrael hissed, even as several things fell into place for Douxie.

Gods... are essences, he thought. Platonic ideals. They're powerful, but limited in their natures. When they go against those natures, they lose themselves and become unmade. Nari might be fond of humans and wizards, but Douxie had never completely managed to forget that she was a primordial being. She was as terrifying as Nimue, but presented herself in a cuter package. If Bellroc and Skrael brought Arthur back without Nari.... The Arcane Order were particularly entwined; in times of duress, Merlin's records had shown, they could lean on one another. Borrowing Nari's powers, however, especially without permission... clearly hadn't gone well. No wonder Arthur is an empty shell while Morgana isn't. They did it wrong. And in doing so....

Douxie felt breathless, looking at Bellroc and Skrael, who he suddenly realized were the walking wounded.

Herne could have killed himself, murdering Douxie if he refused to run. What had Bellroc and Skrael done to themselves, in using power that was not theirs?

They're damaged, Douxie realized. They're hurt.

Forget Atlantis and Gaylen. This is bigger than that! And at the same time... simpler. Because people were people, no matter what they were shaped like.

Bellroc and Skrael are bullies, like Steve was. Like Arthur was. Like Morgana is. Because they got hurt - by humans not being what we should be, by Nari leaving, by unauthorized use of her domain... and they don't know how to get better.

If I could help them get better... maybe they'd call this whole vendetta off.

"Nari," said Douxie, and his voice cracked for the first time in several centuries as she looked up at him, "how do I fix this?"

But it wasn't Nari who answered him, but rather his familiar. "You don't fix people, Douxie," Archie said softly. "You--

"You help them," Douxie finished quietly, looking at the gods.

Author's Note: This chapter fought me. Hopefully it's worth the wait as several themes from all along begin to tie themselves together. "The greatest thing you will ever learn, is simply to love, and be loved in return" is from the movie Moulin Rouge. "Faith, trust, and pixie dust" is from the Tinkerbell movies.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 195/?

sakon76 — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 14:08:14 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 19th December, 2025

Jim's words (justifiable) echoed in Douxie's ears as he watched the Green Knight (Arthur, who was maybe his...) ignore the two of them and stalk toward the side of the canal, mephits ringing his feet like eager puppies. The fell beasts darted in and out of the shadow of the bridge, diving into the darkness like concrete was so much water.

Douxie swallowed.

"...I feel ignored," Jim said after a second, as Arthur laid a hand on the wall of the canal.

Right where the entrance to Trollmarket was hidden.

In one swift movement, the dead king drew his corrupted version of Excalibur and attacked the wall.

The resulting etheric screech jarred Douxie's back teeth. He clutched at the side of his head.

Even Jim, apparently, could hear it, because he too was wincing and holding his hands over his ears. "What's that?!"

"Trollmarket has wards!" Douxie said, teeth gritted.

"They'll resist a divine blade," Archie added in, his eyes scrunched narrow in pain, "but not forever."

Jim's mouth formed the word "wards?" but he didn't make a sound before turning back to face Arthur. "Doux, go."

"But I should--"

"No." Jim cut him off with a flash of blue eyes. "You go deal with Merlin and the Arcane Order." Jim's fingers drummed on his amulet. "I owe Arthur," he said darkly.

Douxie should stay. He should do something. This was, after all, Arthur, who had been Mordred's father, and thus very well might be Douxie's.

But part of him was glad to flee in cowardice, because he'd never wanted to be Arthur's son. Not the way he'd wanted to be Merlin's. Not the way he'd wanted to be Jim's brother.

He swallowed everything down. "Be safe," he said instead.

Jim nodded. He tapped his armored forearm to Douxie's vambrace and turned toward the bridge.

"Come on, Arch," Douxie said to his familiar. "We've got gods to confront."

Under his feet, the broomstick picked up speed, leaving behind the confrontation of the two kings.

Claire had no idea just what she and Angor were going to do once they found Morgana.

Well. Presumably defend themselves. But beyond that? Douxie wanted them to leave Morgana alive, which was feeling kind of like a tall order.

Behind her, Angor Rot was taking the opportunity to admire Trollmarket. Claire could understand that. It was definitely a beautiful place, and presumably even more so to someone who hadn't belonged to a troll community in a long time. But--

"This isn't really the time for sightseeing," she hissed.

Angor, his hand on a smooth, glowing plane of orange crystal, ignored her commentary.

Claire sighed, and followed her ring as it led to the left. Further away from the massed trolls; though sound echoed, she could tell that most of Trollmarket's residents were behind her instead of in front of her.

Or, at least... she thought they were.

Voices echoed from ahead of her too.

Claire paused, and tried to listen. She closed her eyes, well aware of Angor coming up behind her, but needing to know what might be coming up around the next bend more than she needed to keep her eyes on the assassin.

(She trusted him not to randomly stab her in the back, at least.)

It took a moment, but finally she was sure of it. The low woman's voice was Morgana. But who was she talking to?

After another moment, that became clear. Claire's eyes snapped back open as the whining voice went high. "Dictatious," she growled.

Angor, beside her, raised a silent eyebrow of inquiry.

"Blinky's brother," she filled him in. "Who just got out of nine hundred years of serving Gunmar in the Darklands."

Angor hummed, a sound that reminded Claire of stroking her fingers over dark velvet. Or the fur of one of Toby's cats. "You do not trust him."

"He's a self-serving backstabber," Claire informed him. "If he's allied himself with Morgana--"

Angor nodded. "How sad would your Blinky be if his brother dies?"

Claire wanted to ask if he could make it look like an accident.

But she held herself back. We have to be better than our antecedents, Douxie had said. And she did want to be better than Arthur and Morgana, both of whom were best described as ruthless.

She sighed, trying to flush out her feeling of bloodthirstiness and let reason rule.

Magic is emotion. And she didn't want her magic tainted with the kind of sick anger that people like Dictatious made her feel. "Let's try not to kill him. He's Blinky's problem, not ours."

Angor nodded wordlessly, gesturing her to proceed.

Claire wrapped her necklace more firmly around her hand and held the other ready to access magic. She didn't want to call it up before they'd found the pair, not when Morgana might sense it. But neither did she want to be unprepared. She couldn't tell if Morgana and Dictatious were around the next corner, or a dozen away.

Nerves high, she walked softly toward her enemies.

"You have got to be kidding me," Darci muttered as Stuart turned on an old CRT-type television and plopped down into the saucer chair in front of it.

He picked up what looked like a VR headset from the side table by the chair and brandished it at her. "Looks can be deceiving," the Durian said, before putting on the headset. "Just give me a second to get everything fired up...."

Mary rolled her eyes and knelt down in front of the TV. She pressed her hand to the screen. A dark blue glow blossomed beneath her palm. Matching magic roiled in her eyes.

"Whoa!" Stuart jolted in his chair. "Give a fellow some warning, why don't you?"

"I thought this room was a Faraday cage," Darci said, looking around.

"That," he replied distractedly, his hands working in front of himself like he was Douxie wrangling magic, "only matters if you're dealing with the EM spectrum. This connection is hardwired."

"What the-- Stuart, is this thing seriously hooked up to an actual satellite fricking dish?" demanded Mary.

"Modded with a few off-label functions by myself, yes."

"That is so archaic--"

"It's immune to hacking!"

Darci rolled her eyes as the pair blindly bickered, paying no attention to her whatsoever. She slipped back out the door to the shop, pulling her phone out of its little pocket on the side of her plate armor. Scrolling through all the calls she'd missed while in another century (it felt like it should have been more, but she knew they'd only been gone half an hour or so, Arcadia-time), she tapped on her father's number and held the phone up to her ear.

"Hi, Dad," Darci said when he picked up. "I'm fine," she reassured him at his demanding squawk. "But, um, there's incoming, and you and the department need to get people to cover."

Nari ran her hands over the plants growing - so cleverly! - in tubs on the building's roof. They were healthy and happy, well cared for. She could feel the spark of green magic in them. The plants were nurtured by, and intended for, wizards.

Behind her, Merlin stomped up the stairs and back onto the roof. "No sign of that dratted boy," he said peevishly, coming to her side.

"He will be here," Nari said, calm in the face of the human wizard's grumpiness.

"This is no doubt his fault."

Nari hummed, noncommittal. She knew a little more than Merlin did, and he was not wholly wrong, but he needed to find things out for himself sometimes. Between her hands a moonflower bloomed, its flower as large as a plate. "Time is like a flower," she murmured, too soft for the wizard to hear.

Then Merlin's head shot up, the color draining from his face. "The Arcane Order. They're here! Nari, we must flee--"

"No," she said, before he could take a single step toward his airship. She reached out and took his hand between hers. "No more running."

Jim swallowed, feeling adrenaline kick up as he walked toward the underside of the overpass. Shadow mephits, he thought, looking at the creepy creatures eeling in and out of the shade beneath the bridge. Archie said they're vulnerable to fire-- But he didn't have any fire and couldn't use it as a weapon even if he did. I wish Archie hadn't gone with Douxie. But there was no way the pair would be separated, not this time. And given what had happened in the previous timeline, when Jim had separated them? There was no way he would ask it of them.

"Hey!" he yelled. "You can't do that!"

Arthur ignored him and kept hacking away at the wall. Magically reinforced or not, the entrance to Trollmarket was already showing signs of wear. Chips of cement littered the ground at the undead king's feet.

"Hey, King Asshole!" Jim yelled, summoning his own version of Excalibur from the ether. "I said, knock it off!"

He didn't know whether it was the insult or the sword that did the trick, but either way, Arthur paused and turned to look at him.

A gesture sent the hordes of glowing black slime eels scrabbling toward Jim.

Oh great. Oh gross!

It couldn't be worse than fighting off a horde of goblins, right?

It absolutely was. Jim swung ineffectually at the beasts. Their limber bodies dodged aside from his swings like they had only the most tenuous connection with physics.

Jim bit down on a growl as the writhing, snapping mass circled around him, then another as that circle grow tall into a cylinder that closed itself at the top, shutting away the sun and enclosing him in a hissing toothy black tube where the only illumination was flashes of their glowing yellow bellies and baleful eyes.

And their tongues. In their snapping mouths.

The cylinder grew narrower. Tighter. His breath came faster. Jim's arms were pressed against his sides. Excalibur's blade was held flat against his chest. He had no room swing his sword. He couldn't move, the darkness pressed in on all sides.

His heartbeat sounded in his ears.

Thu-dum.

Jim was drowning. Black liquid surrounded him. Weighed him down.

I can't breathe.

Thu-dum. Once.

Thu-dum. Twice.

Thu-dum. Three times.

I'm going to die.

Suddenly, like a blue buoy in the darkness, Douxie's voice came back to him: No darkness of spirit shall stand before the might of Excalibur, the wizard had said.

Darkness... of spirits.

Jim squeezed his eyes shut and prayed this would work. "Nimue, please, I need a boon," he begged.

Excalibur lit on fire, glowing so bright a blue-white that he could see it through his closed eyelids. The hissing mass of mephits recoiled, just enough that Jim could tilt the blade.

It sliced through them like they were nothing more than shadows.

After that, it was easy. Within a minute, the shrieking mephits were no more, and only black, oily stains remained on the ground to show they'd ever been there.

Jim turned to face Arthur. In his grip, Excalibur burned with ghostly, etheric flames. "Is that all you've got?" Jim spat.

The face plate of the armor couldn't move, but Jim got the distinct impression of Arthur scowling at him.

The dead king took a step away from the entrance to Trollmarket.

Hand clenched around his own Excalibur, the green knight moved toward Jim.

"Got it!" Mary said as Stuart's satellite lit up for her, inviting her in and giving up all their data for her perusal. Under her hand on the surface of the archaic television, 1s and 0s flickered in a steady dark blue stream, reflected in her eyes. Ons and offs, forming a code. A language. She couldn't understand it yet, but she didn't need to. Apply filters. Ruthlessly, she shunted the incoming intergalactic cable streams over to one side, out of the way.

"Hey!" protested Stuart.

She ignored him, retuning the satellite's sensors. Looking. Listening. She closed her eyes to give all her attention to the search.

There's a ship out there somewhere, and it's got a homicidal alien tyrant on it who wants to kill me and all my friends.

It was something which didn't belong, and she needed to find it.

"There're ships on the far side of the moon--"

"It's a bounty hunter base," Stuart told her. "Not a place for a nice girl like you."

"I'm not a nice girl," Mary muttered reflexively, but didn't mean it. She huffed out a breath. "Would this Moron-do guy be with the bounty hunters?"

"Well, he's certainly hired them," Stuart said thoughtfully. "But I don't believe he'd lower himself to set foot on that base, no. I've never heard General Val Morando was a man of the people, if you get what I'm saying."

Mary nodded, turning her attention away from the moon. "Where are you hiding...?" she murmured.

Space wasn't quiet, she discovered. At least not when experienced through ~~alien~~Durian satellites. It hissed and crackled. A hundred thousand shows and programs echoed up from Earth, rebroadcast by Terran satellites. The moon base sounded like an ongoing party. Or maybe a brawl. From farther out in the cosmos, there were glimmers of interstellar travel and communications, echoing like oceanic bioluminesence.

"Come on," Mary growled. "Where are you. Where are you."

A feedback screech caught her attention. She wheeled around, the satellite's sensors swinging nearly a full 180 and up.

A black monolith spread across the stars, blocking them out. It hummed with internal communications like a hive full of bees.

Mary waited, listening.

"Oh, is that him?" asked Stuart, like he was up in the satellite with her, looking over her shoulder via his stupid VR headset. "The ship's profile certainly looks Akiridion...."

"Probably," breathed Mary. "But I'm not a hundred percent sure yet. I could try to move the satellite closer, patch in to the ship's systems--"

"But if he blows us out of the sky, there goes our eyes and ears," Stuart agreed. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Mary said.

Aja would know....

Just like that, Mary had a plan. Blindly, she yanked her cellphone out of her pocket. Placing her other hand on it, she automatically scrolled and dialed.

"You know that won't work in here. EM spectrum," Stuart reminded her.

"Ugh. I need a way to call Aja."

"May I suggest the good old-fashioned landline?"

"I just got back from the Dark Ages," Mary groused. "Fine, gimme."

"I really don't want to do this." Douxie felt sick as he deftly maneuvered the broom through traffic. There were fewer people out on the street than he'd normally expect this time of day. Good. Mary's warnings to Arcadia's populace were having some kind of effect.

"What, chat with the Arcane Order?" Archie asked, flying by his side.

"That too," Douxie admitted. Because it was going to be on him to prevent the world from ending again, and that was definitely a no pressure situation, wasn't it? "But no. I meant talking with Merlin."

"Oh." Archie looked sobered by the reminder. "I doubt he'll try to seal you away again, if that's what you're worried about."

"Yeah, not with Jim's threat hanging over his head."

"I meant because he's going to be a bit busy with the Arcane Order himself."

Douxie wanted to vomit into the gutter. Merlin hated Bellroc and Skrael; the feeling was probably mutual. And Douxie was about to insert himself into the middle of that. "I really," he moaned, "don't like conflict."

"Finally admitting it, are you?"

Douxie glared. "Unfortunately, the world has never given a flying fig about what I like and don't."

"If you thought that becoming a master wizard would lessen your exposure to conflict--"

Douxie stopped the broom, looking up. Archie backwinged next to him, following his gaze.

Merlin's airship was visible on the roof of GDT Arcane Books. As were a pair of familiar figures. "Fuzzbuckets," swore Douxie, stepping off his broom. It clattered to the ground. "Are we too late?"

A bolt of green magic splashing off Skrael's horned head was his answer.

"Not yet!" said Archie, flying up. "Come on, old chum!"

Douxie grimaced, his staff appearing in his hand.

With a quick Lignum Aeternum, he followed his familiar, racing up the side of the brick building.

Finally, they had found Nari! And she had nothing to keep her from them save for the feeble protection of an elderly wizard. "Nari," Bellroc crooned.

Her mouth set in a line. "Bellroc," she said. Her gaze flitted to their sibling. "Skrael." Disapproval was still strong in her voice. Like they were children chided for being wrong!

"Nari, it is time to be done with this little rebellion," Skrael said. "We have our work to return to."

Nari scoffed. "'Work'," she chided. "Destroying all that lives on this world."

"We will make it anew," Skrael promised. "With fewer... errors." He eyed the old man who stood by Nari's side clutching a staff.

"Humans are not mistakes, Skrael. They live and they grow and they learn, even as we do."

"We will make you new pets," Bellroc said.

"They are not pets."

Anger boiled. "You will cease this foolishness and return with us now!"

Her chin set further.

"Nari," said Skrael, "you must see that we want only what is best--"

"That is not for you to decide," butted in Merlin. "Lady Nari has made her choice."

"Choices," growled Bellroc, "can be unmade."

Merlin responded with a levin bolt. A wave of Skrael's staff froze it; the green magic crashed to the ground as so much ice, and sublimated as easily.

"Enough!" said Skrael. "We must correct our errors. Nari, come with us now and Bellroc and I will... overlook this willfulness."

Nari's eyes sparked with mutiny.

"I believe," a new voice cut in, "that the lady told you no."

Bellroc's eyes flashed to the side, to the speaker. Atop the edge of the small wall surrounding this place stood another human - another wizard, given that he too held a staff. He was younger than the other, and had a dragon by his side. Bellroc could not remember ever having met him before.

"Hisirdoux, what are you doing?!" demanded Merlin.

"Ugh." Skrael rolled his eyes. "Another wizard."

"Not just any wizard," the boy said, hopping down. He sketched half a bow, never taking his eyes off Bellroc and Skrael. His gold eyes glinted. "I am Hisirdoux Casperan. Heir to the magic of Atlantis and..." He glanced at Merlin, and clearly cut off whatever he was going to say next.

"And?" Nari prompted.

The boy rallied. "And I am here to tell you you are wrong," he said, looking directly at Bellroc and Skrael.

Nari beamed.

Bellroc scoffed. "Wrong about mankind destroying the balance of this world, I suppose."

"In a way, yes." The staff in his hand transformed into some sort of instrument. "Will you hear me out?"

"Bah! Why should we?" asked Skrael.

"Because if you do, Skrael," replied Nari, "I will come with you."

The surprised look on the faces of both wizards and the dragon made it clear none of them had even considered that possibility.

"Nari, you cannot--" began Merlin.

Her smile at him was sweet, and as sharp as a thousand knives. "Oh, I think you will find I can, Merlin," she said. Behind and around him vines grew, throwing out leaves almost as big as the man himself. Their thorns half-circled him.

"I, uh... are you sure?" the man stammered, looking nervous.

Had he thought Nari defenceless?, Bellroc wondered.

"Yes," she told him, nodding. "I am sure." She turned to the boy wizard, crossed to him. "Hello, Douxie. Have you found out the truth?" she asked him.

He blinked at her, clearly dumbfounded. "I-- you remember?"

Nari smiled up at him. Reached up. Patted his cheek. "Time unfolds differently, like a flower."

"You... you said only the Trollhunter would know."

She grinned, sweet and pert. "Did someone not say we were all Trollhunters?"

The boy clearly understood what she meant; Bellroc did not.

"But why--" the boy asked.

Nari shrugged. Laced her fingers together. "For a long time, the world has lacked balance. Eventually, what had happened became clear. But I never found out how, or why, it had happened."

Landing by the wizard's feet, the dragon looked enlightened. "And without knowing the root cause, you were unable to effect change."

Nari nodded sagely and reached out, scratching the fur at the top of the dragon's head.

"But why didn't you tell them?!" the wizard Casperan demanded, gesturing at Bellroc and Skrael.

"I tried," she said, continuing to scratch the dragon's head. The dragon's initial look of surprise melted into blissful purring. Bellroc and Skrael exchanged a glance. "But their hearts were lost in pain. Bellroc and Skrael did not want to hear me. And I," she said, touching the wizard's lute with delicate fingers, "have not the bardic magic."

"Oh." The wizard looked gut-punched. "So all this... wasn't just about Jim, was it?"

"He is a fine Trollhunter," she replied. "And a great king. But as there are things that you could not have done in his stead, so are there things which he would not have been able to do, in yours. I could not do them either."

"Douxie," said the dragon softly in response to the stricken look on the wizard's face.

"Enough!" said Bellroc with a slash of their hand. "Tell us this tale of yours, and then we will take Nari with us."

"Hisirdoux," said Merlin, "you cannot trust them--"

"Gods," said the boy wizard, "are not limited in power, save for when they are fettered. But they are limited in their natures. You taught me that." His eyes met Merlin's. "And though they may be vengeful... they must accept the gifts of mortals and mages. And truth," he said, fingers touching briefly to one of the multitude of pendants he wore. "Truth... is quite a gift."

His fingers moved to the strings of his instrument.

The bardic mage began to play.

"Krel!"

He jolted, almost dropping his work as Aja came barreling into his workspace, brandishing her communications device.

"What?!" Krel demanded. "I am in the middle of very delicate time-sensitive work here--"

"Yes, yes." His sister waved an airy hand, dismissing his concerns. "I have Mary on the line. And she has found Morando's ship!"

"What?!" Krel exchanged a look with Eli, and carefully set down the almost-complete interstellar wormhole generator. It was somewhat improved from his initial creation, as this timeline had given him more chances to interact with and study Claire's shadow portals. "Mother, can you reroute this call to your systems?"

"Of course, my royal."

"--taking so long," Mary's voice suddenly cut over the internal speakers. Krel was aware of his parents hovering in the doorway of the room, but he paid them little mind.

"Mary!" he said.

"Oh, hey, Krel."

"How are you tracking Morando's ship?" he demanded. "It is almost certainly hidden from Earth sensors."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not using Earth's sensors, then, isn't it?" she sassed back. "Stuart has a satellite--"

"--which she is using to cut me off from my shows!" Stuart's voice whined in the background.

"And I'm live-streaming the data from that. Any way I can get it to you and your Resistance?"

"Huh." Krel thought about it as he picked up the sonic screwdriver again. "As soon as Eli and I get this generator functional, which should only be another five mekrons or so, we can certainly begin transmitting to the Resistance...."

"Zadra!" Aja snapped.

Zadra appeared behind Krel's parents. "Yes, my royal?"

"Mary has information the Resistance will need. We require you to get them here."

Zadra bowed. "Yes, my royal."

"If I may," interrupted Mother, "I should be able to 'piggyback' onto the Durian satellite."

"Hah!" Stuart barked in the background. "No, sorry, I don't believe you can, my lady. I made my satellite unhackable because of nutjobs like those at Area 49-B."

"Can you not just give Mother whatever access code she needs?" asked Aja.

"I can do that," Mary grumbled.

"That's my private satellite!" Stuart whined in the background. Krel imagined Mary was giving him A Look, because a moment later the Durian huffed and relented. "Fine, whatever, let's give it a try."

Aja and Krel exchanged a glance, and then a nod. "Mother, do it."

Mother's icon brightened. Her normally inaudible systems revved up. The entire ship shivered. "Connecting," said Mother.

Distantly, something went BANG!

The room was plunged into blackness. Emergency lights quickly came on. "Mother!" shouted Krel's father. "What is going on?"

Mother spoke. Her voice was distant, distracted. "I appear to be under attack."

"Kleb," Krel swore.

"You and the Pepperjack stay here," said Aja. "Keep working. Zadra, with me!"

In the living room, Aja, followed by Zadra and her parents, found Varvatos stood at parade rest, his arms behind his back, glowering out the window at the front lawn.

"Varvatos?" asked Aja. "What is going on?"

He did not turn to face them, but his frown was evident. "It seems," said Varvatos Vex, "that the bounty hunters have returned."

Author's Notes: Happy holidays!

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 194/?

sakon76 — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 04:51:03 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 28th November, 2025

"Here?" Skrael muttered incredulously, staring out at the incredibly pedestrian human landscape laid out before him.

"Here," Bellroc agreed. They stood beside Skrael atop the bluff overlooking the town. Behind the pair of them, their guard dog kept silent watch. The immortal Green Knight followed his masters wherever they went, as mute and mindless as any homunculi.

Interestingly, there were signs of a recent massive battle in the human hamlet below.

Curious, Skrael thought, his eyes narrowing. Usually wizards and magical creatures kept their fights clear of places where they would need to hide the evidence from mortals' pathetic view. But here the damage and remains were not only clearly visible to the pathetic humans who passed them by, but indeed seemed to be viewed posessively.

The place reeked of widespread magic use. It was an outlier. That made Skrael uneasy.

"There is a heartstone," Bellroc declared.

"Yes," agreed Skrael. The heartstone, one of the larger ones remaining, had been buried, paved over, but still shone crystal-bright to his senses, and Bellroc's. "But it is unlikely to have been the source of the emanation." The blinding shock wave of power had spread across the globe until it had met itself on the other side. Unlike waves in a pond, however, it had not bounced back from that contact, had left no ripples. It had simply soaked in, like rainwater to waiting Earth. The residue was still there; he could feel it, fine as mist. But what was it? It did not have the flavor of any heartstone, let alone this ancient one.

...The power reminded him of something from long ago. Something gone so thoroughly that even now he was having difficulty remembering it, let alone naming it.

"We should be cautious," he murmured. "Until we know what we are dealing with."

"Cautious?!" Bellroc snapped, hasty and impatient as was their nature.

"This magic feels... familiar," Skrael explained.

Bellroc subsided. "It does," they admitted. "Which is why I do not trust it. We have no idea what caused it, or what its effects will be."

"Caution," Skrael repeated, soothing. "It will do us, and our plans, no good to be too hasty. You remember what happened last time."

A wordless growl was his response at the reminder of Nari, their lost third. They had moved too swiftly to rectify what was broken and Nari had... she had argued with them, her words and logic senseless, contrary, meaningless. And then she had vanished, shattering their unity, crippling their ability to guide the world.

"Caution," Bellroc reluctantly, sullenly, agreed. They turned to the Green Knight. "Investigate the heartstone," they instructed. "Make sure that it is intact, and report back to us."

The undead warrior silently bowed, obedient to their will, then slipped away to fulfill Bellroc's orders.

Skrael's eyes suddenly flew wide. The uncanniness of the town spread below them suddenly irrelevant. "Bellroc, do you feel--"

"Yes," his sibling snarled with all the thousand voices of flickering flames. "Nari!"

Above them, a white star fell to Earth. Their heads both snapped up, tracking it. She was so close.

"We must go to her," murmured Skrael, following the vessel's path. "She must come back to us. So much depends on it."

In a whirl of white flame and whiter ice, they slipped between spaces, attuned to the ethereal magics of their missing third like tracking hounds.

She shall be ours!

Jim screamed, right in Douxie's ear, clinging to his shoulders like a koala as the broom dipped down into the riverbed, taking the shortcut from their suburb into downtown Arcadia.

"Loo-- loosen up a little, will you?" Douxie snapped.

"I knew I should have just run this!"

"We are getting in some last minute strategizing."

"Actually," put in Archie from the air beside them, "you're enjoying terrorizing your little brother a bit."

"I can multitask!"

"I hate you," said Jim. "I hate you so, so much."

Douxie laughed. He had to. "If you knew how many times I've heard that--"

"Mostly from Zoe," agreed Archie.

Overhead, something white and high in the air gleamed, zooming past them, heading for downtown.

Douxie stared.

The broomstick coasted to a halt, right in the center of the canal.

"Why are we stopping?" asked Jim.

Douxie's manic elation had vanished, as dried up as the Californian riverbed. He swallowed. "That was Merlin's airship."

Behind him, Jim stiffened.

The last time they'd seen Merlin, he'd been snoring in a wheelbarrow in the twelfth century, prior to being carted off by Douxie's younger self to create the tomb where the master wizard would sleep for the next nine centuries.

But the last time they'd spoken to the Merlin of now, it had taken Jim's sword to Merlin's throat to stop him from sealing Douxie away.

"Hey." Jim's hand squeezed Douxie's shoulder. "It's going to be okay."

He shook his head. His voice was rough. "You don't know that."

"I do know that," Jim insisted. He stepped down off the broom, changing its balance. Douxie shifted to compensate. The extra height the hovering broomstick gave him was just enough to have them eye-to-eye as his half-troll brother looked him in the face. "Look, you said the last time we went back to Camelot, Merlin was different afterwards, right?"

It felt like there was a rock in Douxie's throat, trying to go down square. But he nodded.

"Because we changed the past, just a little bit," Jim said. "Because he saw you living up to your potential."

"Doesn't matter," Douxie managed, shaking his head. "I still did what he said I was going to. I've caused everything he'd locked away to be set loose--"

"And that's not a bad thing!" Jim stressed. "Look what happened when you freed Nimue."

"He's not going to see it that way!" Douxie snapped.

Jim rocked back on his heels, surprise all over his face.

Douxie wiped an arm across his eyes. "Look, Jim, I appreciate the... the pep talk. But Merlin has decided I'm a danger, the same as he did with Morgana. And Merlin is not known for changing his mind."

"He loves you," said Jim. "...In his own way."

"He loves the greater good more," said Douxie quietly.

Archie was looking back and forth between the two of them like a spectator at a tennis match.

"He threw away the greater good to save you," said Jim softly.

Douxie swallowed. "He did," he admitted. The one moment that had proved that Merlin valued him. "But he's not going to do it again," he said quietly, because that was also true. "I'm not subservient or disciplined, I disobey and rebel, and... I'm a punk, Jim. I try to do things for the right reasons, but they're not Merlin's reasons, and they're not the results he wants. Even if he saw potential in me nine hundred years ago, that'll still be tempered by everything I've done since we woke him."

"He's your dad," Jim said helplessly.

"I've had three," Douxie agreed without much humor, admitting to something that might break him if he let it. "At least the first one loved me enough to make up for the others." Because Casper had. Douxie had no questions on that score.

Archie shifted shape, landing as a cat on Douxie's shoulder, making the broomstick bobble. He rubbed the side of his face against Douxie's, a clear, silent I love you.

Douxie took a breath, letting his familiar's love act as an anchor, stabilizing. "Anyway, it doesn't matter what I feel, only what I do. Merlin's here, the Order are going to be tracking him. Everything about me," he said with a wave of his hand at himself, "can wait until after." If there was an after.

There has to be an after.

"No."

Douxie blinked. "What?"

"No," Jim repeated himself. He huffed, breath escaping between his tusks as he searched for words. "You are a master wizard," he said, apparently finding them. "He gave you your staff because you earned it. You know where Merlin came from, and what drives him. And if my math's not wrong," he said with a hint of a smile, "you've been moving around this world a couple centuries longer than he has. You're his equal."

"Jim--"

"He's right," said Archie unexpectedly, making Douxie look at him. His familiar jabbed a paw at him. "You are now older, stronger, and clearly wiser than Merlin, who has let himself be blinded by Arthur's prejudices."

"But--" Douxie started, but cut himself off as something streaked by on the ground, nearly touching Jim's foot, making Jim jump.

Jim stared with wide blue eyes. "What was that?!"

Darci banged on the door of Stuart Electronics. "Hey! Stuart! Open up!" she yelled.

"Stupidest closing hours ever," Mary grumbled from behind her. Darci could feel her own phone vibrating in its little pocket inside her armor, with whatever the technopath was uploading. Probably duck-and-cover guidelines for anyone in the immediate vicinity of Arcadia.

Finally a blurry pink figure appeared on the other side of the glass, waddling up to the door and unlatching an unholy number of locks. "What is it?" Stuart demanded as he opened the door. "Can't a fellow catch a bit of downtime before he starts the night shift at his own taco truck?"

"No time for tacos." Mary shoved her way in, past Darci and Stuart. "We've got serious shit going on here."

"Mary!" Darci chided.

"No!" Mary brandished her phone at Darci. "That is exactly what it is, and I need more eyes on the ground than I've got. Stuart," she said, turning to the Durian, who looked befuddled, "We know that there's an Akiridion fleet in orbit."

He paled, even as Darci corrected, "We don't know that it's a fleet, but we've got confirmation of at least a flagship."

"Oh, not good, not good at all...." Stuart was backing away, as if readying to bolt.

"I need your satellites," Mary snapped.

"My... what?"

She gestured around the junky shop of outdated Earth tech. "There is no way this isn't a cover for some serious alien tech. And I know you knew who Aja and Krel were, so you've got some way to keep your eyes and ears open to intergalactic news, yeah?"

"I... do," he admitted.

"Gimme," Mary demanded.

"But I'll miss my shows!" he whined.

"You can watch them later, after we've saved the planet."

Stuart wilted. "Fine. But they're not the same if they're not live," he warned, trudging to the desk, where he plugged in a rotary phone and started dialing. "It's how I keep up on intergalactic fashion trends, you know."

"Uh, no offense," said Darci, glancing out the front door, "but you're not exactly a fashion model."

"What?!" She glanced back at him. Stuart was stood up straight in outrage. "I'll have you know this," he said, shaking a fold of his pink terrycloth bathrobe at her, "is the height of Dendarii fashion right now!"

"Maybe," said Mary, "but on Earth, you look like a schlub."

"No accounting for taste," Stuart muttered to himself as he pressed the glowing center of the rotary, and the wall concealing his secret apartment slid back.

Darci flipped the deadbolt, and hurried to follow the pair.

After snack time and the washing of sticky hands came free play time. Jack had just finished tossing the last of the juice boxes into the bin (overhand, five points!) when he heard a screech in the particular tone that usually predated a preschool brawl. He spun, ready to defuse, only to see--

Well. I wasn't expecting that.

In front of a wide-eyed Nicholas Haddock, a green cylindrical foam block hovered, untouched, in the air.

After an instant's surprise, Jack moved to cover. "Hey there, let's not do that, okay?" he asked, plucking the block out of the air and kneeling down by the blond boy. Inwardly, he was cursing. Outwardly, he was checking to see who had seen. The other kids were probably okay; anything they said would be put down to childish imaginations. But if any of the other staff had noticed....

Nuffink lunged at Jack and buried his face in his chest. "Hey, hey, it's okay," Jack soothed, rubbing the boy's back in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "You didn't do anything bad. I'll talk to your dad about it, okay?"

Zephyr Haddock had gone through daycare and preschool without showing any sign she'd inherited her father's wizardry. Her younger brother, apparently, had.

"No fair!" Naveah said. "How come Nuffink gets to do that an' I don't?"

"It's not a matter of fair--" Jack started, but was ignored by the child, who turned with a huff and glared at the blocks in front of her.

The words were taken from his mouth when, wrapped in a crackling sheen of red sparks, a red cube rose into the air and Naveah's face lit up in triumph.

"What." said Jack blankly.

A clamor of "me too!"s began to echo through the room.

More blocks began to rise. A plastic dump truck swooped through the air. Shrieks of childish glee resounded.

"What the fuck."

Jack turned to see Stacy staring wide-eyed at the magical mayhem. "Uh, it's not what it looks like...?" he offered weakly.

The dump truck crashed into the wall. Jack winced. "Okay, maybe it is," he admitted, and stood.

He had to do something before the flying projectiles started hitting children instead of walls and the group of baby wizards - holy fuck, it has to be all of them, how the hell?? - started screaming.

"Stacy, can you call Mister Haddock?" he asked. Wide-eyed, Stacy nodded but didn't move, still staring.

Jack rolled his eyes.

His crook manifested in his hand, three hundred year old oak the most familiar thing in the world. "Okay, everyone," Jack said, raising his voice to be heard, "powers down, now!"

They heeded him as little as Jamie had at the same age.

Jack huffed, blowing his bangs upward. He reached inside, for the pool of magic that lay within him, as crisp and deep as a wintry pond. He might not have the formal spell-casting education of certain of his peers, but he was good at innate magic.

At his gesture, all the flying toys settled back down to the ground.

Stacy's stare transferred to him. "Calling Mister Haddock?" he reminded her pointedly. After a second, she nodded, and scurried toward the phone.

"Well," said Jack, returning his attention to his charges and crouching to be closer to eye level with them, "I'm very proud of you all. Congratulations, you're all wizards."

Tommy's hand shot into the air. "What's a wishard, Mister Jack?"

"All of you," said Jack, smiling even as inwardly he quaked. Forget about the larger implications - how was he supposed to handle an entire preschool of new wizards? "And me," he said, flourishing his hand and summoning a larger-than-life snowflake that sparkled and spun above it.

"Whoa," the lot of them breathed.

First principles, he reminded himself. "Now, the first rule of magic is, do no harm," he said, completely making it up, because if he thought about the chaos that was going to come from a whole bunch of little kids, with their tendencies toward innocent violence, suddenly getting telekinesis, let alone who knew what other magic, he would panic. And he could not afford to panic. Not until this was all over. And it wasn't going to be over any time soon, he realized, because he'd need to be dealing with their parents and he was probably the only mage any of them knew....

Later, Jack told himself. "So what's the first rule?" he prompted, knowing they would remember it best through repetition.

"Do no harm," the kids chorused, some of them looking more sure than others.

"Great," he said, sitting down cross-legged. "Now who wants to hear a story about wizards?"

To a one, they nodded.

"All right. Once upon a time, there was a boy named Jack," he started. Keep them busy, and keep them calm, until I can figure out what to do!

What the heck am I supposed to do?! Toby wondered wildly. Talk Trollmarket into fighting? Yeah, because I did such a great job at that last time.

The problem was, Toby conceded, that he was just him. He wasn't a powerful ancient wizard like Douxie. He didn't have a king's destiny like Jim. He was just... Duke Toby. Best friend, with the lamest superpower ever, emotional support.

That's not true, he told himself fiercely. Because it wasn't. Duke Toby, yes, best friend of Divine King Jim, absolutely... but he wasn't just a best friend anymore, was he?

I'm the Trollhunter. Jim may have set that up for me, but even so, Merlin's amulet chose me. And he may be a pompus old windbag, but his amulet doesn't choose wrong. Even Douxie agrees.

Slightly ahead of him, Blinky had stopped. "Master Toby?" he asked softly, looking concerned.

"Just... I dunno how I'm going to convince everyone to fight," Toby confessed. "I did so well last time, remember?"

"Hmm, yes." Blinky looked pensive at the reminder of Toby's dire forays into public speaking. "But perhaps... you do not need a grandiose speech?" he suggested. "Myself and my brother were always something of outliers. My library," Blinky admitted, looking sheepish, "is not well-visited, Vendel and a few precious others aside."

Toby took that in. Digested it. Turned it over and thought about it.

It was true that the trolls of Trollmarker were part of Jim's kingdom, whether they realized it or not. But also....

"Deya didn't do fancy speeches," Toby mulled aloud. "She just said 'we're going this way' and everyone followed her. Without even having Excalibur or anything."

"Quite so." Blinky nodded. "Perhaps the difference is not so much in words, as in... conviction?" he offered.

Toby took a breath, searching for a center. "Conviction," he said. His fingers touched the center of his chest. His eyes met Blinky's. "Vendel said you lead from here."

"Vendel," allowed Blinky, "is indeed wise."

Conviction, Toby thought again. What am I convinced about?

With Jim and Douxie off doing their own thing, it was up to Claire to lead Angor Rot around Trollmarket. And it felt wrong to her. This was a good place, and he wasn't a good person. She really didn't want him here....

But like Douxie had said, hadn't everything bad he'd done been under Morgana's influence? And, in the last timeline, Strickler's?

Ugh, I hate them both, she thought, even knowing that she didn't really hate Strickler, she just hated what he'd done when he'd had his back up against a wall, forced into an impossible choice. And her feelings about Morgana were tinged with a surprising shade of sympathy.

Trust her? No. Understand her? Maybe.

She probably shouldn't hate Angor Rot. It was just hard to disentangle what he hadn't done from her memory of him doing it.

"How do you propose to find her?" asked Angor Rot, his voice quiet. It still grated on Claire's ears.

She glared back at him. "Well, I could try to portal to her--" she began sarcastically.

"But the witch would sense it," Angor concluded before she could. "And this wants... stealth."

She didn't want to agree with him. But she had to.

Trollmarket was big. Labyrinthine, in some areas. Claire had to assume Morgana hadn't stuck by her crystal when she'd been freed. If it was her (and she resolutely ignored the fact that she and Morgana were more similar than she wanted them to be), she would have booked it away from her prison before anyone could come along and stick her back inside it.

How to find someone who doesn't want to be found? Where to find someone who doesn't want to be found?

Claire drew a deep breath, trying to think.

A different memory occurred to her. One that had nothing to do with Angor Rot, and everything to do with the back room of a store that smelled of old books, and just a hint of the scent of cloves.

Distinguish them, Douxie's voice spoke in her memory. He'd helped her find the way to pull apart her ability to portal to someone, and her ability to find them....

From underneath the fancy medieval silk dress Douxie had made, Claire pulled out her amethyst ring. She pulled the chain over her head, wrapping it around her hand. Taking a breath, she closed her eyes and thought of Morgana. Her pride, her arrogance... the deep hurts inside her, where love and loss had driven her mad.

The chain swayed, then tugged.

Claire opened her eyes. The amethyst was glowing, pulling her in the right direction.

Angor's eyes also glowed. Well, they always glowed, but this felt different. "A Way of Finding," he said, sounding mildly impressed.

"Come on," she told Angor. "This way."

A shadow streaked down the canal wall and disappeared into the shadow of the overpass bridge. It might just have been that of a passing bird, but....

Another followed, from another direction. And another. And another.

"Douxie," said Archie nervously, adjusting his glasses.

His familiar was watching the shadows dart toward the bridge. "Something tells me those aren't umber imps," Douxie muttered, tense, eyes wide.

"Doux...?" asked Jim.

"Remember that fight you're supposed to have?" Douxie asked.

Jim swallowed. "Yeah?"

"I think," said Douxie as a shape arose from the ground, "that you're about to have it."

Ringed by shadow mephits, a figure in dark green armor, a glistening black blade held in one hand, stood right before the hidden entrance to the Trollmarket.

"My word," said Archie, adjusting his glasses. "Is that...?"

His familiar nodded. "The Green Knight himself: the revenant of King Arthur."

Jim swallowed. "Oh... fuzzbuckets," said the young half-troll king.

Author's Note: Apologies for the missed weeks of posting! And for the late posting today - our internet has been out a good part of the day. For some reason, this year just feels like everything is on fast-forward and I'm not getting as much writing time as I need. That and the Douxie-and-Jim scene needed a lot of editing until it got to a place I was mostly happy with. (During the editorial process, my Wonderful Husband told me I needed to get rid of about a third of the chapter, and he was right.) Stuart's remark about his bathrobe being the height of Dendarii fashion is a throw-away reference to the Dendarii Mercenary Corps in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 193/?

sakon76 — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 12:54:06 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 17th October, 2025

I'm not ready for this! Darci thought as Claire started doing her magic thing and opening portals to send people where they needed to go.

She couldn't do magic like her besties could, she didn't have enchanted armor or holy weapons, she was just a girl who managed to look effortlessly fabulous all the time! She wasn't ready to fight in some prophecied battle against freaking gods for the end of the world!

But like hell was she going to sit on the sidelines while her friends did all the work.

"Hey," she said to Douxie, who was waiting his turn for Claire's portals, same as she was. "Not that I don't look fabulous in this dress, because I do, but it's a little impractical for getting civilians off the street, you know?"

Douxie's expression shifted from exhausted-and-contemplating to amused agreement. "Perhaps something a little more personalized than the dregs of Camelot's armory?" he suggested.

Darci nodded. "A little less smelly, too," she requested.

Douxie's grin lit up his face. He flexed the fingers of the hand that held his staff. "Milady's wish," he said, and his pupils glowed blue.

Darci's elegant medieval gown also glowed blue, almost instantly replaced by lightweight silver armor that didn't pinch, and didn't reek like the inside of the Mole. She glanced down and saw almost invisible silver etchings in intricate patterns that....

Huh. She blinked.

The etchings echoed Jim's crown.

Archie raised an eyebrow at that and looked at Douxie, who looked unrepentant.

"Oh, oh!" Steve waved his arm high in the air. "Me next! Me next!"

"You're already wearing armor, Steve," Mary told him.

Darci flexed and tested her range of motion. It was significantly greater than it had been in the Camelot armor. She looked up at Douxie, whose eyes had returned to gold. "Thanks," she said quietly.

He shrugged one shoulder, like he wasn't looking even more tired than before. "It is the least I can do, outfitting you properly as a Knight of Arcadia."

"Well, she still hasn't got her own weapon," Steve pointed out, cradling his axe in both arms. "I've got a quest token!"

"It's not a competition, Steve," said Claire, closing her portal to the Tarrons' house and turning to them. "Who's next?"

"Strickler and the girls," said Jim. "We need crowd control before the fighting starts."

"All right," she said, turning to open another portal.

"Just a sec, I'm almost done uploading this--" said Mary.

"What, do you lose signal going through one of my portals?"

"Yes, actually," Mary shot back.

"Steve," said Douxie, "while we're waiting, may I take a look at your axe?"

"Uh, sure." Steve held it out in both armored hands.

Hovering his hand over the hilt, Douxie squinted, his eyes flashing gold. "Huh," he said.

"What? What??" Steve demanded.

Douxie shook his head and blinked, eyes returning to normal. "Well, that's definitely a divine weapon," he said. "Not quite the same way Excalibur is, but...."

"But it's cool, right?" Steve pressed.

Douxie smiled. "Yes, Steve, it's cool," he promised. "The fact that it's one of Nimue's incisors is likely why we were able to bring it forward through time. And," he added, "I would lay money on the fact that you're probably never going to need to sharpen it."

Darci, who had spent time with Aaarrrgghh learning how to hone the edges of the heap of weapons that the trolls kept in the Hero's Forge, whistled low and appreciative.

"You do that well," Angor observed to the young shadow witch as she smoothly shut her unused portal.

"Yeah, well," she said, not looking at him, "practice, you know."

She clearly bore him animosity, despite never having met him before. Angor's eyes narrowed as he contemplated that and the wariness of the young divine king who was so obviously her mate.

It was not that his reputation did not precede him... but there seemed to be something personal to this wary dislike. He could not recall having made any attacks on human settlements.

"You distrust me," he observed. "Why?"

She snorted; her brown eyes met his. "Stick around and earn our trust," she said, "and maybe I'll tell you why."

"Claire," the other wizard drawled.

"You know what happened, Douxie!" she snapped.

"Yes," he said calmly. "And I also know it hasn't happened." He laid his hands on her shoulders. "You're feeling stressed - we're all feeling stressed - but you need to look past what was to what is." Gold and green eyes glanced up, briefly meeting Angor's gaze before returning to the girl's.

"You trust him," she said. It sounded like a complaint.

"I don't not trust him," the wizard corrected.

"People who have had their souls stolen are different," observed the small black dragon that sat on the table.

The wizard nodded. "Judge him for what he is now, and lay the damage he has caused at Morgana's feet, not at her puppet's."

The young king looked incredulous. "So, what, he was the gun, and she was the wielder?"

"An apt comparison, Young Atlas." The changeling, Strickler, met Angor's eyes. "We have all been granted second chances," he said levelly. "I would advise you to be mindful of what you do with yours."

The shadow witch thrust out a hand. A portal formed. "Strickler, go," she commanded.

Sketching the suggestion of a bow, the man obeyed. The portal vanished behind him.

"Mary, Darci--"

"Okay, I'm good," said the sleeker girl. "Just drop us at the town square, Claire." She had a black rectangle in her hand; her fingers danced across it in some unknown arcane rhythm. Angor could feel her power emanating from it, wisping off into somewhere he could not follow. "We'll take it from there."

"Hey, no, wait!" The stout boy in armor ran back into the room. "Darci, you need something to defend yourself!" He held a sword up before the darker-skinned maiden, beaming.

"Well, it's still not a softball bat, but I'll make it work." She took the rather plain weapon from him and awarded him a soft kiss.

The boy beamed harder. "Make it your own and kick butt."

"Dumbzalski, can we go yet?" whined the tall blond human.

"You go and kick butt too," the girl told her suitor. "I'll see you on the flip side, Toby."

"You got it," he said, heart in his eyes as the portal closed behind her and the other girl. "Fine, I'm coming, Steve!" he said, whirling.

"Come, Master Tobias," the six-eyed troll said. "Aaarrrgghh and Vendel will surely be glad of our reinforcing and reassuring presences!" He, too, side-eyed Angor as he left. "Especially in these unprecedented and unpredictable times...." he muttered, not quite low enough to be unheard.

Angor let the clear distrust wash over him and away.

"You know Lady Morgana is going to kill you for that," Douxie told Angor Rot, nodding at the broken staff whose halves the assassin still held.

Angor grinned, and it was all Jim could do not to back up a step. The skin of his face ached where Angor had once painted his Mark.

It's psychosomatic, Jim thought angrily. He forced his hand to be still, to not reach up and touch where nothing had ever happened.

"She may try," Angor replied. "She once traded me power for my soul. Now I have regained my soul and broken her power." He tossed away the two broken halves. They clattered on the floor.

"You've broken her staff," Claire corrected.

"Yeah," Jim agreed. "She might not be as powerful without it, but she's still dangerous."

Angor drew a knife. Its curved blade shone in the light, like he hadn't just been freed from who knew how many years locked up. "I, too, am dangerous."

"You can't kill her," Douxie butted in.

The three of them looked at him.

Douxie cringed. "Look, I know that she's done... questionable things," he said, not meeting their eyes. His hands wrung his staff.

"'Questionable'?!" demanded Claire.

Douxie looked up and met her eyes. "I seem to recall you saying you'd burn the world for Enrique," he said softly.

A physical punch probably would have knocked less wind out of Claire's sails.

"Douxie," tried Jim, "she's insane. She wants to destroy the world--"

"She hasn't got Gunmar, Jim. She hasn't even got her staff." Douxie shook his head. "She's not going to destroy the world. She's just going to take her pain out on it until she gets her brother back."

If Douxie had a plan, Jim couldn't see it. "Doux--"

"If we want to make a better world," Douxie said, "we have to be better than our antecedents."

"...What do you mean?"

Douxie drew a breath. Let it go. Met Jim's eyes. "I told you once that you were Arthur and I was Merlin."

Jim blinked, remembering those moments on the back step of his house. It felt like a lifetime ago. "And...?"

"And it's on us, particularly the three of us," Douxie said with a gesture, "to be kinder than Merlin, and Arthur, and Morgana. To be humbler. To not be... to not be kings and wizards passing judgment from our gilded towers."

"And that means letting Morgana go free?" demanded Claire.

Douxie shook his head. "No. I think this time, it means giving her what she wants."

"She wants Arthur," said Jim.

Douxie nodded. "And last time, when she realized what the Order had brought back of him was just the shell of the baby brother she'd loved... well."

"She got jolted back to sanity," said Claire. "Douxie, you don't really think that'll work again."

He shrugged.

"The only way to beat the Order is to give them what they want...?" Jim murmured.

"Just so."

Why did all of Douxie's plans for defeating their enemies involve giving them what they wanted?

Douxie must have read Jim's incredulity on his face. "If we can turn our enemies into allies," he said quietly, "we can win it all." He gestured at Angor Rot, who... well, he was an ally for now. Jim didn't know if that would last. "We can build a better world," said Douxie. "But we have to try to do it right, from the start. Camelot had rot at its foundations. Let's make it so that Arcadia doesn't."

Shit. Why did Douxie have to come up with deep philosophy now, when they were probably up against the wire? Jim felt like he was in front of the Round Table again, choosing which of his friends would live and die by his making the right or wrong decision.

Douxie seemed to read that on his face also, because his shoulders slumped. "I'm not... I'm not saying to keep Morgana alive at all costs," he said. "Just, if we don't have to kill her, maybe we shouldn't?"

Claire surprised Jim by moving first. "No, you're right," she said, stepping forward and laying her hand on Douxie's shoulder. He looked up at her. "Killing someone shouldn't be our first move," she said, glancing at Angor Rot. "Let's hold it in reserve, and try other things first."

The assassin huffed. "You think she can possibly make restitution for what she has done?" he demanded.

"Well," said Archie, sounding thoughtful, "she certainly can't try if she's already dead...."

Angor rolled his eyes. But he sheathed his knife, so Jim was going to take it as a win.

"Where to?" Claire asked Jim. "I mean," she said, glancing at the ex-assassin, "I assume Angor and I should stay around here."

"Morgana was imprisoned in Trollmarket, so she's probably still here. Somewhere," Jim agreed. His hands flexed. "If I'm taking on Arthur, I guess I go with Douxie. Since he's taking on the Arcane Order, and Arthur's probably with them...."

Claire nodded. "I'll get Morgana to you as soon as I can."

Jim took his hands in hers. "Be careful. She's crazy, and she's dangerous."

"I know." She looked into his blue eyes, wishing her stomach wasn't knotted up like they were at the top of a drop on a roller coaster. She tried not to let her nerves show on her face. "You take care too." She glanced beyond him, at Douxie. "Both of you," she commanded.

Douxie sketched an obedient bow.

"A portal to our home," Jim requested quietly. "We need to get some things there."

Claire nodded, reaching between here and there, opening a gateway to the house she knew almost as well as her own. "For in a minute there are many days," she murmured, still holding her hands in his. Jim paused, looking at her. She mustered a smile for him. "O, by this count I shall be much in years / Ere I again behold my Romeo."

The black mesh of his magitech armor brushed against her cheek, his fingers chasing a few wayward strands of her hair out of the way. "Farewell," Jim replied. "I will omit no opportunity / That may convey my greetings, love, to thee." The depth of affection on his face was limitless.

Angor's brow wrinkled. He looked at the two of them, then at Douxie, as if asking for an explanation.

The wizard shrugged, a soft smile on his face. "Romeo and Juliet," he explained to the assassin. "A play. It's their thing."

It wasn't always their thing, thought Claire. But sometimes it was easier to use Shakespeare's words than to find her own. "O, think’st thou we shall ever meet again?"

Jim smiled. "I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve / For sweet discourses in our times to come." His lips brushed against hers. "I'll see you soon," Jim promised.

Claire nodded, and watched him and Douxie and Archie disappear through the Shadow Portal, wishing she wasn't having the worst case of the nerves she'd ever felt. It wasn't true that every time Jim went off and played hero by himself something bad happened.

It just felt like it.

The Darklands. Merlin's potion. Everything that had led up to him literally turning into stone in front of her.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to stand up straight. To put away everything she couldn't control. To pull her shoulders back and lengthen her spine the way her mother had taught her. To be ready for whatever would come. "Come on," said Claire to Angor Rot. "We've got a sorceress to find."

Claire's portal left them on the doorstep of the Mothership.

"Should we ring the doorbell...?" asked Eli.

Varvatos scoffed. "That horrible and annoying noise? Certainly not. In any case, the King and Queen will not understand the significance of that deafening tone."

"Why would Claire leave us here?" asked Krel. "Why not the living room, or my lab, or--"

His sister's hand on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts. "Perhaps, little brother," said Aja, "it is because she knew we might need a minute before meeting our parents again."

Krel scoffed. "We don't need a minute! We are under a deadline. I need to be in my lab, working."

"Maybe," said Aja, sounding so much like Queen Aja that he felt resentful, "but you are not going to get there without talking with Mama and Papa first."

"It is not Mama that I am worried about," Krel muttered. Both of their parents had always favored Aja, it was true, but it was King Fialkov who had always pressed Krel harder than his sister and not cared about his real interests in favor of making his obedient child the ideal child. Their mother had always been the more patient parent in Krel's life.

"Krel--"

The front door was yanked open with force, making all of them jump. "Welcome home, kiddos!" said Lucy, a giant smile on her face. "The big bopper and I have so much to tell you!"

"We were not gone that long," Aja said, walking inside. Krel followed her, as did Eli; Varvatos and Zadra brought up the rear.

"Yes, but there have been a couple big developments in that time," said Ricky.

Lucy shut the door, revealing their parents standing in front of the fireplace.

"Your majesties!" said Zadra and Varvatos, both bowing. Varvatos bowed deeper and remained in that stance even after Zadra straightened.

"Rise, Varvatos Vex," said King Fialkov after a moment. His voice sounded stern. "Mother has informed us of your role in protecting our children."

"Varvatos cannot hope to be forgiven," Varvatos said, tension in his shoulders as he regarded his living king for the first time in years. "He... I have done unforgivable things. And can only hope to redeem myself through future actions."

Fialkov nodded once, his expression grave. Krel thought that if his father tried to punish Varvatos now, after everything, he would have to stand in the way. "We shall talk more later."

Away from the children. Krel felt his expression grow mulish.

"Who is this?" Queen Coranda, ever more graceful and charming than her spouse, stepped forward.

"This is our friend Elijah the Pepperjack!" Aja stood behind Eli, two of her hands on his shoulders. "He is a most brilliant native of this planet, and our close friend."

"Um, hi, Mr. and Mrs. Tarron?" Eli tried, wiggling his fingers in greeting.

Coranda smiled. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Elijah the Pepperjack." Her eyes rose from his face to her childrens'. "However, at this time we need to have a family meeting, so if you will excuse us...."

"No!" snapped Krel. "We do not have time for a family meeting! General Morando is in orbit right now, and I need Eli to help me to make a wormhole device to get the Akiridion resistance here in time to help fend him off--"

"Krel!" his father barked.

"No!" Krel stood his ground. "We," he said, his wave encompassing Aja, Varvatos, Zadra, and Eli, "have been on this planet fending off attacks for parsons now. We know who our opponents are, and what weaponry they bring to bear. You do not get to wake up from your regeneration chambers - which we fixed since the Mothership's entire Daxial array was lost in the escape from Akiridion-5 - and take over a situation you have no knowledge of!"

Fialkov's face went stormy. "You are a foolish child who wastes his time--"

"I saved your life!" Krel shouted. Fialkov rocked back, expression surprised. "But you don't care. All you care about is that I am not perfect, not who you want me to be, and that Aja is."

"That's not--"

"IT IS!" Krel glared at his father. "I am done trying to be the good child, Papa. There is too much going on here, and too much at stake. You can stay here, or Varvatos can catch you up, but right now, you need to get out of my way."

Fialkov's face darkened to a storm. He opened his mouth--

Coranda's hand landed on his shoulder. "We can discuss this later," she said to her husband. "Krel has never been a liar. If he says there is an emergency, and he needs to deal with it now, then he needs to deal with it now."

Fialkov huffed up for a moment, then subsided. He stepped aside.

"Thank you," Krel said to his mother. "Come on, Eli." He caught the human's hand in his own and led him into the aperture behind the fireplace, that led to the rest of the Mothership. "We have work to do."

"So, uh," said Eli as he did what Krel told him to, assembling the things he was handed and acting as a third pair of hands because apparently two really wasn't enough, "that was kind of... um, something. With your dad."

Krel did not look at him as he fused wires with his sonic screwdriver. "Yes."

"I mean, I get it. People don't always agree with their parents." Eli swallowed. "And parents don't always listen," he whispered.

Krel stilled. His eyes met Eli's.

"I love my mom," Eli forged ahead, not knowing quite what he needed to say, but very certain that he needed to make some sort of connection with Krel and what he was going through. "And I know she loves me. But it's been... kinda hard ever since my dad died." He looked down at his hands. "She... she needs to know where I am, and what I'm doing, all the time. I got my paper route just to get out of the house before she wakes up, you know? To have some time for me."

Krel was silent for a minute. "I do love my parents," he said eventually, his hands fiddling. "And I know that they love me. But Aja has always been the protege."

"Aja?" Eli asked with a bark of laughter. Sure, Aja was ridiculously competent, but Krel was a genius!

"Akiridions are technologically advanced," said Krel, "but we are also a proud warrior people. And I... am not that."

"I dunno," said Eli, thinking back to some of the stuff he'd seen Krel do. "You seem pretty impressive to me. You can do, like, all those flips and stuff. And use a sword and a shield."

Krel waved that away with one hand. "Compared to the average Earth high schooler? I am acceptable. Compared to my peers and especially my sister?" He snorted and resumed working. "I am supposed to be good at fighting and diplomacy. Science and engineering were lesser. Things for other people to do. People who were not of the royal house. I was supposed to lead in battle and in politics. Instead, I follow and I fiddle with my toys." His last word was sour.

"Krel." Eli laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'm helping you build an intergalactic wormhole generator. I'm pretty sure that's impressive even by Akiridion standards. I mean," he said, looking around the lab, "I don't think the Mothership came equipped with one."

Mother's icon, hovering nearby, brightened. "I did not, Mister Pepperjack."

"There, you see!" Eli said. "You're amazing, Krel."

Krel sighed and resumed working on his wormhole generator. "Maybe. But that does not matter if the right people do not see it. Mother, I need a fluxion capacitor."

"We have two spares."

"Show Eli where they are, please."

The icon bobbed as Eli stared at Krel. "You have flux capacitors?!" His voice cracked.

"It is a fluxion capacitor, but yes, why?"

"Krel! After all this is over, we need to have a movie night!"

The house was quiet. It felt, Douxie thought, like it had been a thousand years since they'd been home, instead of less than two weeks.

"After this," he told Jim, "let's take a bit of a break from time travel?"

"Amen," his brother agreed. "I want to sleep in my own bed for a week solid, at least."

Douxie barked a laugh.

"MOM?" Jim called.

"I believe she is out." Archie licked the back of a paw and smoothed it over his head. "She was planning to visit Nomura, remember?"

"Oh yeah," said Jim. "Sorry. It's been a while for us."

Archie paused his grooming and looked at them. "Yes," he said simply. "I do recall." He looked at Douxie. "So do you want to talk about...?"

"No," said Douxie shortly. Jim and Archie exchanged a look. He sighed. "Look, I do not want to talk about it now, not when we've got various disasters - including Merlin and the Arcane Order - descending upon Arcadia as we speak. We can talk about my feelings later."

"Oh yes," said Archie dryly, "'later'."

Douxie ignored his familiar's sarcasm and turned to the stairs to get his meds.

"So where should we go from here?" Jim called after him.

"Wherever the Order show up," called Douxie down the stairs, "I'm sure they'll make themselves obvious." Both of his bottles of meds were on top of his dresser; he considered them, then shook the daily dose into his hand and tossed it back, swallowing the pill dry. He tucked both bottles into a hoodie pocket, then on further consideration, took them out again and tucked them into the ether pocket in his vambrace. It would be entirely too easy for the bottles to fall out and get lost mid-battle.

He heard rattling around in the kitchen as he went back downstairs. "Yeah, I remember," said Jim. "They're not exactly big on subtlety or blending in."

"You might be surprised," muttered Douxie. He knew Bellroc and Skrael had followed him and Nari around various metropolises. But Douxie was very good at running, so the instant he'd gotten a whiff of them, he, Archie, and Nari had cut and run.

He rounded the corner into the kitchen, where Jim had the refrigerator door open and was looking inside, narrow-eyed.

"Are you stuffing snacks into your armor pocket again?" Douxie asked.

Jim shut the door. "Maybe. Especially now that everyone theoretically has magic powers."

Douxie granted his point with a nod.

"Got your meds?"

Douxie nodded again.

"Anything else we need?" Jim addressed Archie as well. "No? Great, let's get going."

Douxie sauntered over to the hallway closet, pulling out the house broom - he'd forgotten his own down in Vendel's workshop, drat it - and smirked at Jim.

Who stopped short. "No," said his brother. "I am not riding that thing with you. No way."

Douxie's smirk grew.

Author's Note: Eli's mention of a flux capacitor is a reference to the Back to the Future movies. And the sonic screwdriver Krel uses is from Dr. Who.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 192/?

sakon76 — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 13:12:41 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 3rd October, 2025

"Wait. Hold up. Merlin said what?" asked Toby.

Douxie exchanged a glance with Jim. True, only the two of them had been there to hear Merlin's dire pronouncement of Douxie's fate, when he'd been about to seal away his apprentice to forestall that very same destiny - but surely one of them had mentioned it to the others?

Apparently not.

It was Douxie's destiny, so it was his duty to illuminate the others about it. It couldn't be worse than fulfilling Mordred's role, could it?

Mordred, he realized, was something that was done and gone and buried nine centuries in the past. For all the heartache and terrified tension involved with time travel, in the end the current world had been preserved and thus Mordred didn't have much bearing on the world as his friends knew it.

The release of old gods and monsters from their imprisonment... very well might.

He swallowed.

"Merlin said," Douxie began, his voice thicker than he'd like, "that I was destined to free the gods and monsters he had imprisoned." The modern world no longer held much cold iron like gaggletacks that could deter the Wild Hunt and their ilk. Like genies freed from their bottle, the old powers were sure to be mad. And willing to take out their pain on whoever came across their path.

Merlin's beard, this is going to be worse than what Morando would have done. At least he was only a single giant!

Douxie felt ill.

"Ah, question." Krel raised a hand. "How exactly is this your fault?"

"I talked you into shattering Gaylen's Core," Douxie pointed out. The same way he'd talked Arthur into fighting at Killahead. He took a quick breath and refused to meet anyone's eyes. "Seems I'm rather good at talking people into bad ideas." Maybe that was his destiny. Maybe he was Mordred, that cursed child of destiny. Maybe everything Douxie touched was going to wither and die because of him--

A hand on his shoulder. He looked up and met Jim's blue eyes. "Stop," his brother and king told him. "You're going in circles, aren't you?"

Douxie couldn't even answer with a nod. If he did, he felt he might shatter.

"What other people do," Jim said, "is not your fault. Arthur chose to go to Killahead because you were right that he was going to die anyway - but he chose to do it to leave a legacy."

"And we chose to destroy Gaylen's Core because you were right," Aja agreed, stepping up by Jim's side. "Morando absolutely could not be allowed to gain that power again, and the people of Earth deserved to have returned to them what was stolen."

"Not everything is your fault, Teach," added Claire with a small crooked smile.

"Yeah, you're not that important," Toby chimed in.

Douxie had to chuckle even as every cell in his body seemed to scream that they were wrong, this was absolutely his fault.

"How reliable is this Merlin?" demanded Varvatos. "He did not seem the best judge of character from what Varvatos saw."

"Oh, as far as seeing the future, I'm afraid Merlin's always been impeccable," Archie answered from his perch on Douxie's shoulder. "It's merely his interpersonal relationships that are his point of failure."

"He has the Time Map," Douxie pointed out. Which I gave him to keep our timeline intact. "Even if he didn't have a proclivity for temporal magic, that alone would give him an edge."

Jim huffed. "I seem to recall you having a talk with Mom about 'destiny through choice'," he pointed out to Douxie. "So even if this is your fault - and I'm not sold on Merlin blaming you for it because he seems to blame you for an awful lot that's not your fault - you still thought this was the right thing to do." Jim cracked a smile. "The greater good, and all that."

It had seemed like the greater good. Taking a weapon out of Morando's hands and returning Gaylen's stolen magic to the people of Earth. It had seemed like a way to win it all. But hindsight was a persnickety bitch, and Douxie hadn't realized, hadn't calculated, that the shock wave would break prisons.

He hadn't listened to Merlin, and he knew people would pay the price in blood.

He needed to do better.

Jim seemed to read all that on his face, because he gave a sigh. "We're going to talk more about this later," he warned, "but right now we've got external problems to deal with. Are you going to be able to hold it together?"

Douxie gave him a thin smile. "For as long as I have to," he promised. Because that was one thing he was good at: holding on for as long as he had to, until things were settled. One of the few things about me that actually qualifies me for master wizardry, he thought. As if reading his mind, Archie gave him a narrow glare. Douxie smiled apologetically at his familiar.

"Okay." Jim turned back to the rest of the room. "Right now we have to deal with Morgana being loose." His gaze stopped on Strickler and Angor Rot. "You don't know us," he told the troll. "All you have to work with is that Strickler does, and our word that we have no interest in letting Morgana control you, or anyone else, ever again. Do you want to work with us, or...?"

Glowing golden eyes met Jim's for a long moment. Slowly Angor began to smile. "A divine king," he mused. He glanced at Strickler. "You might have led with that."

"There was hardly time," Strickler rejoined, his usual composure finally back in place.

Angor returned his gaze to Jim. "I will work with you, little king. For now."

"The enemy of my enemy...?" asked Darci.

"Indeed."

Claire's head tilted. "Morgana is going to want her Shadow Staff back," she pointed out, nodding at the staff Angor held. Which was Morgana's staff, and Douxie would love to know how Angor had come by it. But Claire had wielded it too, knew the power it held.

"Indeed," Angor repeated himself, raising the staff and considering it. "It holds much power..." he mused. His gaze focused again on Jim, then on Douxie beyond him. A wicked smile crossed the assassin's lips.

He raised the Skathe-Hrün and with one swift, sharp movement, brought it down on his raised knee, breaking it in two.

Claire and Douxie alike cried out.

A fierce snarl was their answer. "Deny your enemy their weapon," Angor Rot said. "Is that not what you've done?"

It absolutely was, but....

A wizard's staff is everything to them, Douxie couldn't help but think, horrified, remembering the last time he'd seen a staff destroyed.

It had felt like losing the last part of his master, his father. This time....

"Oh dear," said Archie. "She's not going to be happy about this."

The gold-clad sorceress suddenly fell to her knees, gasping, as Dictatious watched. Her flesh hand curled into a tight fist, pressed against her chest as she struggled to breathe. He watched, nonplussed, unsure of what to do. He should take advantage of her weakness--

But he was no longer in the Darklands, and Gunmar was dead. Dictatious needed allies.

Her skin color had turned from sandstone to chalk, and she looked as likely to crumble. Surely that was not good for a human?

Tears pattered to the ground.

"My dear lady--" he began, seeking to offer some facsimile of comfort, when he was interrupted by a growl.

She rose, an unholy light in her eyes, and Dictatious realized that what he'd mistaken for simple pain or grief had transmuted into purest rage. "They dare," she spat. "First my children, and now my staff! Merlin and his brood shall pay for this."

Green eyes latched onto him, and Dictatious fought not to quail. He had survived Gunmar... surely he could survive this mad witch?

He became less sure of that as her golden finger-claw hooked under his chin and tugged.

Dictatious stumbled forward, as surely as though she had him on a chain or leash.

"You will find the one who destroyed my Skathe-Hrün," Morgana le Fay instructed him. "And you will in turn destroy them."

"What-- what is a Skathe-Hrün?" stammered Dictatious.

"My staff, fool," Morgana snapped. "Do not disappoint me. You will not enjoy the results of your failure."

"Yes, my lady," Dictatious choked. When she released him, he stumbled back, trying to breathe.

The instant he was free of her, he decided, he was going to run. She was no ally of his. He'd had quite enough of madmen seeking their vengeance!

"Okay, so. So." Jim's train of thought screeched to a flaming halt as he realized the situation.

Multiple enemies.

He was going to have to divide up his friends to deal with them.

And the last time he'd done that--

"--im. Jim!"

Someone was shaking his shoulder.

He managed to blink. Managed to focus.

Claire and Toby and Blinky slid into view, clustered before him, all looking worried.

"You, ah, with us, Jimbo?" asked Toby.

Mutely, he nodded.

"You zoned out," Claire said. Beyond her, Angor Rot, still holding the two halves of Morgana's staff, was looking on with interest; Strickler, with concern.

"Master Jim, what is wrong?" asked Blinky softly.

"The last time I sent people to different areas," he answered softly, "people died." Nomura. Strickler. Nari. Toby.

"Death is inevitable," Zadra pronounced crisply.

"No, it's not," said Douxie, glaring at her. "That's why we're back here, to make sure no one dies this time."

"What if I choose wrong again?" asked Jim. "If I send the wrong people to the wrong places again...."

"Well," said Krel practically, "that's why you have a 'Round Table,' isn't it?"

"We are here to advise you," Aja agreed. "So lay out your plan, and let us advise."

Jim drew a deep breath. He was so grateful for his friends that he felt like he could cry with it. Instead-- "All right, team," he said, looking around. "Here's what we've got. Morgana is here, and the Arcane Order are on their way."

A flick of Douxie's hand summoned blue illusions of both parties on the table in the center of the room that had so lately held Gaylen's Core. En masse, they shifted to surround the table, strategizing.

"Merlin's likely to be on his way, too," Douxie added, adding another illusion to the set. "Though I don't know whether to classify him as an opponent or not."

"Oh yes." On Douxie's shoulder, Archie adjusted his glasses. "There's no way he'll have missed that shock wave. He'll be haring toward Arcadia, assuming he isn't here already."

"Who else?" Jim asked.

"Well, there are the Zerons," said Aja. "As well as Tronos Madu. But I do not know if they will come here, now."

"What about Morando?" asked Jim. "Do we have an ETA on him?"

"Let me find out." Krel pulled out his device that only looked like a regular cellphone. "I will call Mother and see if she has detected any Akiridion ships coming into orbit."

Jim nodded, fist rubbing at his amulet. He knew it was damaged; like a light wave, that shard of Gaylen's Core had been both energy and particles. But it felt like it would hold, and they probably had no time to fix it right now. He had to hope it would remain stable so long as nothing changed.

The minute he took the armor off, though, he suspected he, and the amulet, were in for a world of pain.

The best people to deal with Morgana, he thought while Krel called, were Claire and Angor. If they could depend on Angor. Given what had happened to Nomura, though, it was probably best to keep Strickler well away from her. And Trollmarket needed to be calmed down; Toby would be good at that, and at getting them organized to fight if needs meant they had to. The Arcane Order would have Arthur with them--

"WHAT?!" interrupted his musings. Jim looked up at Krel, who looked very pale for someone who glowed blue. Aja looked shocked also. Jim wondered what he had missed.

"...Papa?" asked Krel in a very different voice.

Krel's mind whirled. This was not possible! It would be nearly two more wardons before his parents would be fully regenerated.

His father's voice in his ear, demanding to know where he was, where Aja was, argued differently.

It had to be a trick of some kind. Morando had landed and his OMENs overrun Mother. This was a lie, a falsehood designed to lure him and Aja out of hiding and destroy for once and for all the royal house of Akiridion-5.

Krel's core pulsed with pain. His parents had to be already dead.

They'd lost this chance to do things again and do them right. No matter what Jim said.

"Krel," said Aja softly, "is it possible...?"

He shook his head, mute. There was no way.

Douxie's eyes narrowed and he took a step closer. "With magic," he said, "all things are possible."

Krel's mind latched onto that like a lifeline. There was magic on this planet; it had not saved his parents before; had it been able to save them now?

The shock wave of power from Gaylen's Core. Had it done something?

He couldn't dare to hope.

"Papa," said Krel, forcing the words to form, "when you and Mama hid Gaylen's Core, who did you meet?" It was something that Morando didn't know. Something he couldn't know. Not even Mother knew.

There was a pause. "Krel?" asked his father's voice.

"If you are really you," said Krel carefully, "then tell me who you met."

"Two... trolls." His father's voice sounded confounded. As if it was Krel who was a stranger now.

"What were their names, Papa?" asked Aja, her head tilted against Krel's as they both listened to the communication device. Her eyes held hope, but also caution.

"Vendel," said their father, causing Krel's core to spasm in his chest, "and Kanjigar."

"Papa," breathed Aja, while Krel lost the ability to speak altogether. Hot liquid trickled down his cheeks, which should be impossible as he was not wearing his transduction at the moment. It also felt like something was choking him. He scrubbed his arm against his face, trying to wipe away the damned tears, but they kept coming.

"Papa," said Aja, having taken the communicator from him, "we are safe. Do not worry. We have even Varvatos and Lieutenant Zadra with us. Now, does Mother know if General Morando has made Earth orbit yet?"

Toby didn't have parents. That didn't mean he couldn't appreciate how important they were to his friends, no matter how turbulent some of those relationships seemed at times. So he went in for a big hug as Krel kind of broke at finding out his parents were healed, alive, and well. Watching their parents sacrifice themselves in the previous timeline had done a big number on both the Tarrons, and no matter how a few years had blunted the edges, parent-related traumas didn't seem like things that ever really went away.

Witness Jim and how his dad being a dick had shaped who Jim had become.

Witness Claire and her fraught relationship with Councilwoman Nuñez.

Witness Steve's lack of a dad, and Douxie's maybe having too many dads, and...

Yeah, some days Toby was glad he didn't have parents to mess him up.

It was a sign of how deeply affected Krel was that he wasn't objecting to Toby's hug. He didn't even bat Steve away when the blond clanked across the room and laid an armored hand on Krel's shoulder. "Cry it out, dude."

"I hear you, Papa. No, Krel and I will not be returning to the Mothership right now. We have more important things to do--" Aja held the communicator away from her ear as it erupted into a parental tirade. Aja drew in a deep breath, her shoulders huffing up as an irate look bloomed on her face. It was like one of those nature documentaries where birds made themselves seem bigger to bluff predators. "There are some things more important than doing what you tell me to do! Krel and I will come to you after we finish saving this world." Aja didn't sound like a daughter so much as she sounded like a queen as she ended the call and looked at Jim. "According to Mother's sensors, there are indeed Akiridion ships in orbit."

Jim made a face. "Great."

Another waggle of Douxie's fingers and Morando, flanked by a couple of his killer robots, was added to the table. Jim stared at the array of tiny opponents and sighed before straightening.

Wiping a few last tears away, Krel straightened too, no longer relying on Toby for support. Aja put her hand on her brother's shoulder and handed him back his cell faux-n.

"All right. All right." Jim sounded like he was either trying to marshal his thoughts or give himself a pep talk. Maybe both.

He looked at Toby first. "Tobes. I need you to get Trollmarket calmed down and ready to fight."

"Aw, man!" Toby made a face. "Didn't we just come from getting the trolls ready to fight?"

A smile ghosted across Jim's face. "You'd be living up to Deya," he pointed out. "And we don't know that they'll need to fight, but if we do need them...."

Toby sobered. "Yeah, better to have them than not. Just, I didn't do so well at it last time."

"You've had more practice now, Trollhunter," Jim pointed out. "I have faith in you, Tobes. I know you can do it."

Toby accepted the charge with a sigh. He wasn't as sure as Jim that he could talk them all into fighting... but he'd sure as heck give it his best shot.

"Steve, Eli," said Jim. "I need you to help Toby. There's a lot of trolls to wrangle, and only one him."

"Awright!" Steve fist-pumped while Eli adjusted his glasses. "Let's whip these trolls into shape! Creep!"

"Slayerz," Eli finished their cheer with less enthusiasm than Steve. But he nodded.

"Blinky--"

"Master Jim." Their mentor sketched a shallow but meaningful bow. "It would be my honor to help convince my brethren to once again stand our ground and not run away."

"Claire," Jim said next. "I'll need you and Angor to deal with Morgana."

Angor Rot's face twisted in displeasure. "To kill her?"

"Only as a last resort," Jim insisted, meeting the assassin troll's eyes with all the extra weight that being a divine king gave him. "She can be redeemed. And only then can she make amends."

"And me, Young Atlas?" asked Strickler.

Jim's mouth pursed. "Given what she did to Nomura...."

Strickler's eyes widened. "Indeed."

"We don't know if she can still try to mind-slave Changelings," said Jim, nodding at the broken halves of the Shadow Staff, "but this is not the time to find out the hard way. Instead, I want...." He surveilled the table, and it was clear when inspiration suddenly struck. "I want all the changelings in town getting people out of the way. The Arcane Order is about to hit, and this is probably going to get messy. Mary, Darci. You're with Strickler. Use social media, physical force, whatever you have to, but get the streets clear."

"Will do." Mary's hand clenched on her phone.

Darci tossed a salute.

Jim heaved a sigh, looking back at the table. He studied the glowing blue figure of Morando and the OMENs. He looked back up at Aja and Krel, at Varvatos and Zadra. "I wasn't here for the fight with these guys. What do you think?"

Aja frowned, stepping closer. Her fingers brushed across the tabletop. "Morando will not have the advantage of Gaylen's Core this time."

"Fortunately," agreed Krel, "since we have not replicated Seklos' Cannon this time either."

"General Morando's OMEN units are formidable opponents," Zadra pointed out. "Let alone the General himself."

Varvatos snorted and pounded one fist into the other. "Allow Varvatos Vex but five minutes with the usurper, and he will no longer be a problem."

Krel shook his head. "We cannot defeat the OMENs with the primitive technology on this planet. And I know magic is an option," he said, looking at Douxie and forestalling whatever the wizard was about to say, "but we are not sure that will work either."

"Telekinetically crush anything into a cube the size of your fist and it's pretty well defeated," the wizard replied, "but we're also short on experienced wizards, so I take your point. What's your plan, DJ Kleb?"

Krel tapped a finger against his lips for a moment, looking thoughtful. "I will need Eli," he said.

"What?!" demanded Steve.

"YES!" Eli fist-pumped.

"You can't just steal my Creepslaying partner!" Steve complained.

"I will give him back safe and sound after I am done," said Krel. "But he is the only person here other than me who has even a rudimentary understanding of Akiridion technology, and I will need a third pair of hands."

"What are you going to do, little brother?"

Krel's grin was feral. "I am going to go back to the Mothership and finish recreating my wormhole device. Then I am going to import the Akiridion resistance and arm them with variable phase weaponry to fight those Seklos-forsaken OMEN units. Zadra, I will need you to contact the resistance and explain the situation while Eli and I work."

A grin bloomed fast and wide across Aja's face as she glomped onto Krel. "I am so proud of you, little brother!"

"Princess Aja and I will accompany the King-in-Waiting and coordinate the resistance," said Varvatos.

"Well," said Jim, "assuming that works, that leaves just the Arcane Order."

"Who are my responsibility," Douxie cut in.

"What--"

"You need to take on Arthur. Or the Green Knight, as he's styling himself," Douxie told Jim. "He's immune to magic, so I'll have no effect on him. But you've both got Excalibur, Jim, and that means you're the only one who can take him down."

Jim nodded slowly, looking reluctant.

Biting her lip, Claire pressed up against Jim's side. "Promise me you'll duck this time."

"I'll try," he told her. He looked back up at Douxie. "That means you'll be taking on Bellroc and Skrael by yourself. Doux...."

The master wizard took a deep breath. His grip on his staff seemed tighter than usual. "We can't win against them with firepower," he said. "Killing them will only set off natural disaster after natural disaster. So we have to do this diplomatically."

"Diplomatically?" demanded Claire incredulously.

Douxie's gilded eyes met hers. "What they wanted was a balance of mortals and magic. We've given them that, by returning magic to mankind." His fingers tapped on Vendel's worktable, where Gaylen's Core had rested until it was destroyed. "So all I need to do is talk them into giving us some time to prove it." His smirk was wry. "Immortals are generally very good at waiting."

"We're talking the Arcane Order here!"

"Claire." His eyes bore into hers. "This is it. The endgame. If we can do this, we win it all. I know it's risking everything on one roll of the dice, but... trust me. One more time."

Now it was her turn to look reluctant as she nodded.

"Douxie." Jim's voice was different now. Softer. He stepped in closer, nodded at Douxie's grip on his staff. Murmured something Toby couldn't hear.

"Do you need your meds?"

Douxie's eyes flew wide. He couldn't believe Jim had actually asked that in public, betraying Douxie's dirty little secret to all their friends. Heart hammering in his chest, his gaze flitted around the room, looking at all of them, before landing back on Jim.

There was... there was no difference. Like they hadn't heard. Maybe they hadn't?

He held that thought close to his chest, trying to tamp down his automatic reactions.

They probably wouldn't care. He knew that. But believing it was a different matter, no matter how hard he tried.

"No," he said quietly.

"Doux--"

Douxie drew a sharp breath. "No," he repeated, more firmly. "Magic is emotion, and those cut me off from it. I can't have that right now. Not for this."

Jim's mouth drew to a line. "I want you to get them anyway. Not," he said, cutting off Douxie's argument, "because I think you need them. I trust you. But in case you change your mind, I want you to have them with you, to have the option."

Unhappy, but understanding Jim's logic, Douxie acquiesced. Slowly nodded.

"Claire." Jim stepped away and turned to her. "We need portals to my house, and, I guess, the Mothership and Janus Travel."

Claire flexed her fingers. "You've got it."

"Team," said Jim, looking around at all of them, "let's do this."

Author's Note: Aja's line about there being more important things than doing what her parents tell her to do is very, very much an homage to Diane Duane's book Deep Wizardry. And I stole the description of Douxie's eyes as gilded from HoneyxMonkey.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 191/?

sakon76 — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 19:15:45 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 19th September, 2025

Nimue moved through the Wild Woods at night faster than Douxie would have expected. He kept his eyes on her lure, following; the airship's protective field blunted the wind from doing more than ruffling the hair of its passengers.

"Where do you think she's going?" asked Claire eventually from by his side.

"Hanged if I know," Douxie admitted. "We kind of skipped out early on this part, last time."

"Yeah, I know. Which makes me wonder where the myths came from, if you weren't around inventing them." Her eyes slid sideways to rest on him.

Douxie shrugged. "I'm just cribbing from what others wrote. So, really, am I inventing what happened, or did someone else, originally?"

Her mouth opened then shut. "Sometimes I don't really like time travel."

"A necessary evil, but a pain in the tenses," Douxie agreed.

Below and ahead, Nimue slowed then stopped.

"Guess we're here." Douxie guided the ship down.

"Where are we?" asked Aja. Douxie wordlessly conjured a handful of witch lights, illuminating the surrounding area; Claire did the same.

"That... does not actually help," said Aja.

Claire got it first. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she complained, looking at the spill of boulders and the creek that ran through them, coming from the cave beyond. "Seriously?" she asked Nimue.

The goddess' gravelly voice was amused. "It seems... appropriate."

Douxie could not fault her sense of humor. "Well, I guess since the cave isn't being used anymore...." Waste not, want not.

"What was it used for before now?" asked Mary.

Douxie gestured at it. "Formerly, my lady Nimue here was locked up in that cavern, courtesy of Merlin."

"What?!" demanded Mary and Darci, overlapping. Aja just nodded, her expression sage and weary. Douxie wondered what atrocities she'd seen on the stage of intergalactic politics to warrant that particular level of resignation.

"Now," said Douxie, "it's to be the final resting place of the knights of Camelot."

Douxie was, if nothing else, efficient at handling corpses. Claire watched as he levitated them one after another, onto a glowing blue slide construct he'd made of his magic, and sent them gliding into the cave.

She hoped he wasn't dropping them in the water.

She hoped he wasn't stacking them like cord wood.

She didn't think he would....

"This speaks of much practice," Archie murmured, as though sensing her thoughts.

"Nine hundred years of it," Claire grimly agreed.

But for all his efficiency with dealing with the bodies, Douxie still hesitated when he came to Lancelot and Arthur.

"Mary," he said to her, "do you want to do the honors?"

Mary glanced at the slide.

Douxie shook his head. "Not that way. Something a little more dignified, for someone important to you."

Mary blinked rapidly and sniffed, then nodded, her face firming up as she got control over her emotions. "All right."

Golden steps folded down from the side of the airship again, this time on the side facing the cave. Mary approached Lancelot's still form and, with a look of concentration, levitated him. She proceeded slowly down the steps, Lancelot floating after her, wrapped in the deep blue glow of her magic. Darci followed them both.

Taking a long, deep breath, Douxie then levitated the body of the king who might be his father, and followed in Mary's wake, Archie tight by his side.

Was she supposed to feel like a mourner at a funeral, Claire wondered, going side by side with Aja after them. Because she didn't, but she also kind of did....

"Is this what usually happens with the dead on this planet?" wondered Aja.

"Usually we bury them, so kind of, yeah," Claire told her. "Sometimes people get cremated instead, though."

"Ahh."

Claire wondered briefly about Akiridion funeral customs, but she didn't really want to ask right now. Some other time, she told herself, making a mental note.

A sort of path wound between the boulders and over the creek and up into the cave where Nimue had been held prisoner. Nimue herself stayed outside, by the ship, while they went in. Claire couldn't blame her. Most of the vast space was illuminated by witch lights. Claire was glad to see that the dead were, in fact, not stacked like logs, but were instead neatly laid out in rows, each with their own space. Those who still had arms even had them crossed over their chests.

Except for the six of them, it was all so still. Even the running water made no sound. Their footsteps echoed.

It was eerie, and gave her a new appreciation for the phrase "silent as the grave."

Douxie had left two spaces in the middle for Lancelot and Arthur. The two bodies settled there, side by side. Magic vanished off their forms, leaving them on the ground.

"What happens now?" asked Darci. "I mean, should we say some words, or...?"

Douxie's mouth was a line. His eyes were on Arthur. He shook his head. "I have nothing left to say," he murmured, breaking Claire's heart a little, because she'd never heard him so subdued.

"I will speak," said Aja, regal as the queen she'd been. "Here we lay Arthur the king and Lancelot the knight and so many of their brothers and sisters in arms. Let them rest in glory, and be remembered for all our days."

"Amen," murmured the rest of them. One by one, they filed back out of the cavern, Douxie last of all. Once they were clear, at the foot of the airship, he turned again, facing back the way they'd come. His staff appeared in his hand and he closed his eyes.

The ground began to tremble. Slowly, the boulders rose.

His eyes still shut, Douxie's free hand moved forward. The boulders and dirt glided back into the hole in the cave wall he'd blasted open only a couple days before. They moved and shifted and fit themselves together--

--and between one moment and the next, Claire blinked, and could not tell that the side of the hill had ever been a gaping hole leading to a cave where a goddess had been held prisoner.

"Wow," Mary breathed, in conjunction with Darci's "Whoa."

"Krel will be very interested to learn that skill, I think," said Aja.

Archie headbutted against Douxie as their master wizard opened his eyes again, looking tired. "Very neatly done."

Douxie conjured up a weary smile for his familiar. "Thanks, Arch."

"It is done," intoned Nimue, making them look up as she shifted forward, into the view of the lights.

"Now what?" asked Mary.

"They will rest here, until the Arcane Order decides they need a new Champion." Nimue also sounded weary, but in a different way than Douxie. "I will be elsewhere. And you...." She leaned in close, her single bloodshot chartreuse eye examining them all. "You will return whence you came, until we meet again."

Claire swallowed. "You know we're from the future."

The goddess inclined her head. "It is obvious."

Douxie chuckled. When Claire looked at him, he was leaning on his staff. He tapped fingers by his eyes. "Milady Nimue has the magic Sight," he explained.

Darci's eyes flew wide. "Is that why you're ninety percent eyeball?" she asked.

Douxie slapped his hand over his face.

"And fifty percent tentacle, I think," mused Aja.

Claire swore she could hear Douxie's teeth gritting against one another. Still, "Seventy-five percent justified hatred of Merlin, by volume," murmured Claire.

Mary cocked her hand on her hip. "Uh, rude, guys."

Fortunately Nimue just laughed. "I am many things. Few of them without cause."

"Aren't we all," muttered Douxie, still looking mortified. But he breathed in and straightened. "Have you any advice for us, my lady?"

Nimue examined him, then the rest of them in turn.

"You," she said to Archie, "will have much work before you, keeping your familiar in one piece."

"Don't I always," he said with a nod.

"For the rest of you... danger awaits in your own time. It takes many forms."

"Morando and the Arcane Order." Claire nodded.

"Among others."

Her eyes flew wide. "Others?"

But Nimue did not elaborate. "Stay true to yourselves," she advised, "and remember that hope is never truly extinguished, unless you let it be." Those words seemed directed to Douxie. Who looked as confused by them as Claire was.

The master wizard bit his bottom lip, then nodded and bowed. "Thank you for your words, my lady."

Nimue blinked once, then turned and vanished into the night.

"Uh, what was that about?" asked Mary, watching after the goddess as she disappeared.

Douxie shrugged. "Hanged if I know. But I suppose we'll figure it out. Possibly only after it's all over. Prophecies and oracles tend to be like that."

"Only obvious in retrospect?" asked Aja.

Douxie pointed at her. "Precisely. Now, let's go meet up with the others."

"And go home," said Claire.

Camelot hovered over the ocean, out of any man's ability to reach.

"Bloody wizards," muttered one knight. Others agreed with him. Jim eyed them all. They were bloody and sweaty, battle-injured, and tired. It seemed the height of unfairness that in addition to everything else they'd gone through today, they'd also lost their home. And whatever of their stuff they hadn't had on them. He didn't even know what medieval knights would have owned.

Varvatos, much less sympathetic than Jim, growled and pounded one fist into the other. "Varvatos Vex thinks that human knights are a bunch of ungrateful weenies," he announced. "And like all cowardly miscreants, may need to be taught a lesson."

Knights tensed. Weariness washed away, replaced by hands reaching for their swords. "As one might expect from a monster," one of the knights spat.

Zadra, surprisingly, placed herself between Varvatos and the knights, her scythe already in hand. "I believe Commander Vex's words are not entirely incorrect," she drawled.

"Whoa." Krel's gaze bounced between her and Varvatos, his eyebrows raised high.

"Hey, hey," Jim placated, stepping between the two factions, hands in the air, trying to defuse the situation. "We're not here to fight. We've all had enough of that for one day."

"Now, now, it's been a long day, lads," Sir Galahad chided the knights. "Let's come along to the town. The folk there will have healers and food for a bunch of weary knights, and stabling and fodder for our steeds. We'll figure out the rest of it tomorrow."

Grumbling, the knights and squires eventually let themselves be shooed like a bunch of reluctant chickens. Galahad lingered, though, looking at the moonlight magic castle. "'Tis a pity," he opined. "She was a good home."

"Would you like to stay with her?" Jim asked.

"Eh?" The stout man looked up at him through bushy eyebrows.

"Well, as I understand it, she's kind of like a ship," Jim explained.

"The castle is exactly like a ship," Krel cut in. "It has a rudder and a power source, and--"

"And needs someone to steer her," Jim cut back in gently. "For a long time. Until Merlin wakes."

Galahad was quiet for a moment. "'Twould be a glorious task," he said eventually, "but I am not a young man."

"The magic will take care of that," Jim told him. "Too much of it... prolongs human life."

Galahad's eyebrows shot up. "I'll be," he said in a tone of wonder. Then, "You have a deal, young sir!" He held out his hand to shake on it.

Jim's hand practically enveloped his.

"Uh, that's great and all, Jimbo," Toby pointed out. "But we've got no way to get him over to the castle."

"Allow me to take care of that!"

Jim looked up to see Douxie's airship swooping down out of the darkness. It came to rest just by the cliff edge. A golden gangplank unfolded and all four of the girls ran across the gap, followed by their master wizard himself, Archie perched on his shoulder.

"My liege," Douxie said with a flourishing bow to Jim. "Sir Galahad."

"So, you'll take me across to yon floating isle, will you, boy?" Galahad asked even as Jim rolled his eyes.

"Indeed I will," Douxie promised. He looked thoughtful. "There's gardens and chickens and bees, I know, and I think Merlin enchanted the larders at some point, so you should have everything you need for the next several centuries. And of course there's the whole ocean to fish in, if you just make a long enough line."

"Centuries, eh?" Galahad considered that, then nodded. "'Twill be a fine adventure, lad." He turned to look at his horse. "Would I be able to bring Matilda with me...?"

Douxie smiled. "I don't see why not."

"Excellent. Come along, girl."

Jim watched as the knight and his steed clumped across the gangplank. "Anything else we need to take care of?"

"Well, I need to fetch myself and Merlin off that floating rock, and then... then, I think that's it," said Douxie.

Relief washed across Jim. "Home," he said with feeling.

"Home," Douxie agreed, and turned to go to the ship.

"Home," said Toby. "And, hey, while we're waiting, I seem to remember you said something about kisses," Toby told Darci, who grinned and obliged him.

Deya made a face and ignored the two smooching humans. "Gotta say, Skinnylegs, I'm gonna miss you," she said to Jim.

"I'm going to miss you too," Jim told her honestly. "But I think you've got your own community now." He nodded toward the trolls who had followed them and were lingering around the edges of the open area.

"Yeah." Deya looked at them, then back at him. "You promise I'll see you guys again someday?"

"A long time from now," said Jim. She would be dead by then, but... magic had its way around that. For Trollhunters, at least. "It's not goodbye forever. Just for now."

Eventually, Toby freed himself enough from Darci to come stand by Jim and Deya. Darci accompanied him, fingers tangled in his. Which was okay - Claire was on Jim's other side, her hand warm and reassuring in his as they looked out over the night.

"Wasn't I awesome?" Steve asked Aja.

"You were most valiant, my Palchuk," she assured him.

Krel made fake retching noises that both of them ignored.

"Um, Mary, I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry about Lancelot," Eli said. His hand raised like he wanted to touch her, but he didn't. Didn't say anything more, even though he really obviously wanted to.

Mary was subdued. "Thanks, Eli. I guess you're okay. But you're still a shrimp."

Jim exchanged a look with Claire. She shrugged.

Eventually, the airship came back, docking at the cliff again.

"You're absolutely sure that's everything you'll need?" Douxie the elder asked his younger self. "There's no going back."

"Can't think of anything else," Douxie the younger replied cheerfully, wheeling a wicker wheelbarrow over the gangplank. It was filled with lumpy sacks of who knew what, with Merlin draped across them, snoring loudly.

"We've certainly gone more places with less," Archie agreed as they all reached the solid ground.

"If you're sure." Douxie looked at both of them, then drew them both in close, so all three of their foreheads touched. "Take care of each other," he told them gently.

"Of course," younger Douxie and Archie both agreed.

"Guess that's our cue to go," Jim said. He turned to Deya, offering a fist. "Be seeing you, Deya."

She bumped his fist with her own. "Be seeing you, Jim."

Toby bumped his fist into both of theirs. "Take care, Trollhunter."

"You too, Trollhunter."

Jim stepped away. Douxie finished doing whatever magic it was that turned the airship into a snowglobe. "Claire, mini portal to Merlin's workshop?" he requested. She obliged and he tossed the globe through. As her portal closed, everyone else drifted closer too.

"Are we going home now?" asked Eli, excited.

Jim nodded.

"Goodbye, twelfth century!" Steve called loudly.

"Ready?" Jim asked Claire.

She smiled up at him. "I was ready yesterday."

"Me too," said Toby.

Jim closed his eyes and reached for the crystal sticking out of his chest. The shard of Gaylen's Core. There wasn't much left of it. He drew a breath. He thought of home, of Arcadia in the early twenty-first century, of Trollmarket and Vendel's workroom that they'd left from. Breathing deep, he focused, and shoved the rest of the shard deep into his amulet.

The world erupted into blinding white.

The light vanished as quickly as it had flared.

She was left blinking, spots floating before her eyes. Her ears rang. "What the hey?" asked Mary.

"Omygod," said Darci, clinging to Toby's shoulder. She wobbled; he was like a rock. "Are we home?"

"Sounds... like it?" Douxie replied. The ringing in Mary's ears slowly resolved into shouting coming from somewhere outside Vendel's workroom.

"Gaylen's Core," said Aja, stepping forward and resting a hand on the table where the crystal had been. "It's gone."

"The question is," asked her brother, "how long were we gone for?"

"Douxie!" A small black dragon arrowed in through the door, barreling into the wizard.

"Arch!" Douxie clung to his familiar for a moment before they both relaxed enough to look at one another. "What's going on out there?" He tilted his head to indicate the doorway.

"It's chaos. An absolute madhouse," Archie opined. "That shockwave you all set off has turned Trollmarket into bedlam. I shudder to think what it's like aboveground."

"Wait." Jim spoke. "Archie, how long were we gone for?"

"Oh, no more than a half hour or so," the dragon replied.

Half an hour, Mary thought numbly, as Archie prattled on. They'd only been gone half an hour.

Lancelot was gone, and it had all happened in no more than half an hour.

"Wow, like going to Narnia!" Eli gushed.

Mary wanted to hit him. Lancelot was dead, and he was comparing it all to some stupid fantasy book?

Jim winced. "I guess we should go... help calm things?" he asked Toby.

Varvatos nodded. "If there are heads that need sense pounded into them, Varvatos is ready and willing to assist."

Jim clearly didn't know how to take the offer of violence. "Uh, thanks. But let's maybe see what we're dealing with first." He and Toby headed for the door. Claire moved to go with them - then paused, her eyes on Mary.

"I'll catch up, guys," she told the two of them.

Jim stopped too, gaze following Claire as she walked over to Mary. "Mary?"

"It's nothing," she tried to tell him, waving off Jim's concern. "Go do your king thing, or whatever."

But Jim didn't leave, instead only moved closer, standing behind Claire, a full head and more taller than her. "You're my friend," he said. "It's not nothing."

"It's Lancelot, isn't it?" Douxie asked softly. His tone was sympathetic. "He's gone, and you'll never see him again, and that's... hard."

"Oh, Mary," said Aja, sympathetically, her arms coming around Mary.

She wouldn't break. She wouldn't! She was Social Media Queen Mary, and she was strong, and she was a technomancer, and...

and...

Mary started crying, burying her face in Aja's shoulder. Aja hummed comfortingly, her hand stroking down Mary's back.

"Why is she like this?" Zadra sounded worried. "What is wrong?"

"Varvatos thinks," the behemoth said slowly, "that Mary has never before lost anyone." His voice was soft, and for someone so full of violence, weirdly sympathetic.

"She's sixteen," Claire said, snippy. "Normally, sixteen-year-olds haven't lost anyone."

"At least on this planet," said Krel.

"We're not talking about alien planets right now," Claire shot back.

"Mary." A large hand, warmer than human, touched her arm. She blinked her eyes open to see Jim. "It's okay," he said. "We all understand. We've all lost someone."

A wave of nods from all of Jim's group who had come from the future.

"It's not easy," Douxie said. "Grief is like a knife between the ribs. It hurts, and you bleed, and it feels like it'll never stop."

"It does heal up, eventually," Jim agreed. "But leaves a scar. And sometimes the scar catches when you move, and it hurts all over again." His mouth was a line.

"But it will hurt less over time," said Claire, with a glance at Jim, her hand on his arm. "You'll never forget him, Mary, but remembering Lancelot will come to be a good thing. I promise."

"We grow, and our wounds remain the same," said Aja quietly. "We do not outgrow them, but...."

"But you keep going, one step after another, because you have to, even if sometimes you don't want to," finished Krel softly.

Mary sniffed and waved a hand at Jim. "Don't you need to go calm down Trollmarket or something?"

"Making sure you're okay is more important," he said earnestly. His eyes were so very blue and she understood what Claire saw in him. "Being a king isn't just all about grand gestures and big battles, Mary. It's about taking care of my people."

"And I'm your people."

He smiled, simple and gentle and sweet. "You are."

Mary rolled her eyes. "Ugh. God, you're so lame."

Sudden prickles ran up Claire's spine. She straightened, magic spiraling open to her senses.

A rift in the world unfurled between them and the door to Trollmarket. Two figures stepped out.

Two very familiar figures.

Jim growled as Excalibur flashed to life in his grasp.

Toby pushed Darci behind himself, his warhammer materializing in his grasp.

Swirls of darkness flared to life around Claire's hands, her eyes locked on her shadow staff held in his hand--

Douxie looked at the three of them, then at the taller figure who had stepped out of that shadow portal. His staff appeared in his hand. His voice didn't shake as he asked "Angor Rot, I presume?"

"Who?" asked Darci.

"I dunno," said Eli, "but I'm guessing he's not a good guy."

"Strickler," said Jim to the other person, "talk fast."

"Young Atlas!" Their teacher stared, his eyes wide. "You've returned. I--"

"Master Jim!" Blinky came barreling back into the room, followed by Aaarrrgghh. "You're back! Thank Gorgus--" He stopped short as he saw Strickler and Angor Rot. His demeanor immediately changed. "You!"

For his part, Angor Rot smiled. Toothily. He was clearly enjoying their discomfort. "My reputation precedes me."

Jim's eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened on Excalibur's hilt.

"Jim," Strickler tried again. "We needed allies in your absence--"

Claire didn't pay attention to the rest of his words, her attention zeroing in on precisely one thing. The ring on Angor Rot's finger.

The Inferna Copula.

"You gave him his soul back?" she interrupted Strickler.

Now it was Angor Rot's hand that tightened, defensively. One hand coming in front of the other, shielding it. As though he was anticipating them trying to take the ring back from him.

"Well, yes, I--"

"Strickler," said Blinky, "I do not know whether to commend you for your courage, or condemn you for your idiocy."

"I mean, why not both at once?" asked Toby.

Angor Rot snorted. "You argue over trifles while she roams free." His burning golden eyes focused on Strickler. "These are your allies?" The "pathetic" wasn't spoken, but Claire could hear it nonetheless.

But more importantly... "She?" Claire asked. "You mean Morgana?"

"No way, she's locked up in the crystal," said Toby. He looked at Blinky. "...Isn't she?"

"Of course she is!" blustered Blinky.

"Oh no," said Douxie quietly, drawing all eyes to him. His hands wrung his staff. "No... she isn't."

Claire felt she was not the only one who paled at his words.

"Why are you sure?" asked Jim.

Douxie looked up, meeting Jim's eyes, then returned to his study of the ground. "Because of what Merlin said." His voice was very soft. Almost inaudible.

Merlin... had said an awful lot of stuff. And most of it Claire didn't like.

"Which part--oh." Jim's eyes blinked wide.

Douxie nodded, looking upset. "That energy blast from Gaylen's Core... I think that would have done it."

"Breaking Gaylen's Core freed all those gods Merlin locked up." Jim was following Douxie's train of thought perfectly.

"And Morgana," said Claire.

For just a second, that truth reverberated in the air, uncontested.

Krel summed everything up perfectly in two words: "Well, kleb."

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 190/?

sakon76 — Fri, 05 Sep 2025 13:00:41 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 5th September, 2025

Bellroc gritted their teeth, using their staff as leverage, as an anchor, to keep from being sucked into the howling vortex that led to another dimension. They were powerful - but some forces were more powerful still.

The screaming hole between realities seemed to draw on forever, before it shut, leaving echoing silence in its wake. Bellroc absolutely did not stumble as the vacuum, stronger even than Charybdis' infernal whirlpool, cut off.

In the sudden quiet, the enchanted amulet fell from the bridge to the ground, bouncing off a rock with a metallic ringing sound.

Straightening, Bellroc cast out their senses, seeking with burning hands and mind through the web of small fires that every living being possessed. What they found seemed impossible, yet it was. Gunmar was gone. Most of his forces had vanished into the abyss with him. And something had happened to the Arcane Order's Champion. Bellroc could no longer feel her inferno of anger.

"NO!" they yowled in fury and flame, vanishing only to reappear in a whirling spout of fire. They knew who to blame.

The she-troll who stank of Merlin's magic shrank back from them, her eyes wide. Her armor had vanished with the amulet. A swing of Bellroc's staff knocked her off the bridge. "Mundane, simple creature," Bellroc growled, stalking after her, leaping down. They would make her hurt for what she had done. How dare this puny mortal interfere with the plans of the gods!

They landed on the ground, the troll scrabbling back. "You stain magic."

A green hand prised a rock from the ground, threw it at them. Bellroc batted away the projectile without breaking stride, never stopping their forward march. Raising their staff, they prepared to smite her from the face of the Earth. "You are nothing in our eyes!" And nothing she would become.

"Oh yeah?" the troll demanded. Her hand raised, revealing a silver-and-blue circle. Merlin's accursed amulet! "Well, I'm something in my own. For the glory of Merlin!"

The blaze of pure magic rocked Bellroc backwards, made them shield their eyes. Howling with rage, they raised their staff to strike. To destroy Merlin's creation and this impudent, interfering troll--

The she-troll beat them to it, her blade materializing in her hand and cutting an arc of blue light across the space between them with all the power of the sun.

It was the last thing Bellroc ever saw.

Shrieking with pain, they fell back, clawing at their ruined eyes. Their bleeding agony transmuted into a whirlwind of flame that took them away--

Away from this accursed place and that demon spawn she-troll!

Camelot, Claire saw as she glanced out a window while Douxie manhandled a snoring Merlin into his bed, was already in the air.

"Oh dear," said Archie, hovering by her shoulder. "That's going to complicate things."

"I think that was the plan," said Douxie, joining them. A scroll appeared in his hand as if by magic. "Ugh, I need to annotate this before I hand it off to myself."

"How about you do that while Archie and I scout the castle for anyone who wants to get off it?" Claire suggested.

"Good idea. Meet back here when you're done?"

Claire nodded and shadow-portaled away, Archie darting in behind her.

Leaving Merlin in his bedroom, Douxie went to his master's workshop, found a quill and ink, and set to at the table on the lower dais. Forgery was one of his many lesser talents, and he was pretty sure, having done this before, that his younger self would not be able to see any difference between his written instructions and Merlin's. (He hadn't. He hadn't once thought, in nine hundred years, that someone else had written part of this scroll. Had Archie been able to tell the difference? If he had, he hadn't said.)

Much as he was tempted to add in "Do not buy Betamacks" to make himself laugh later, and much as he was tempted to be kinder to his younger self than previous time he wrote this, he didn't. Much. Because Hisirdoux the Younger had a lot to experience in order to become Hisirdoux the Elder.

Eventually, though, Douxie ran out of things to add to Merlin's scanty instructions, which had mostly been concerned with building his tomb, and rather sparse on the future care and feeding of his apprentice. Douxie sighed, scanning over the document one more time, making sure he hadn't forgotten anything, before making it disappear into the ether to hand off to his younger self later.

The battle was probably over by now, and Arthur was dead. Well, temporarily dead. Douxie felt like he should be feeling something about that. He'd been awed by Arthur, in his time, and terrified of him, and even sad for him in an oblique way. Eventually he'd settled on a low-burning anger underlined by a sort of hatred. Because the man had been hurt by losing his wife, but that hadn't given him the right, no matter what he thought, to hurt so many others as badly as he had.

But now, with the possible connection of Mordred between the two of them... shouldn't Douxie be feeling something? Anything at all, about the man's death?

Instead, there was nothing there. Like King Arthur wasn't connected to Douxie at all, hadn't shaped so much of his life by his actions. He was just another name, another figure. And he was dead.

"I think," Douxie said into the silence of Merlin's workroom, "maybe I've burned through everything I could feel about King Arthur?" Because he'd felt this sort of emotional blankness before, but those times it had been accompanied by more severe trauma. Wars, and plague, and the simple violence that all sapients seemed to inflict upon one another, resulting in losslossloss....

Douxie drew a breath, and tried to let everything float away from him, dandelion seeds on an invisible breeze.

"It doesn't matter," he told himself. His shoulders slowly lowered. "I can't do a thing about any of that. All that matters... is what I can do."

And what he should do... was....

Douxie's eyes widened. "That book." He spun hastily on his heel, eyes scanning Merlin's bookshelves. It had been a small volume, he remembered, bound in dull red hide....

"Where are you," he muttered, going to the closest set of shelves, running his fingers along the spines. "Come on, where did I put you?" Because Merlin never put his own things away, leaving that drudge work to his apprentice.

He chewed his bottom lip, then closed his eyes and sunk into his magic, middle and ring fingers folding against his palms as he concentrated, calling. He knew which book he wanted, he knew it was here somewhere, he just needed it to come to him.

A moment later, he opened his eyes, finding the volume hovering in the air, limned by blue light, pages fluttering gently open.

Douxie smiled.

Taking the book from the air, he returned to the table and took up quill again, turning to the back pages, where he remembered there being a bit of empty space.

Into Merlin's little book of theoretical healing spells, the ones that had never worked for Douxie nor any other mage who had tried them, Hisirdoux Casperan carefully translated and transcribed the Atlantean methods of healing.

Half an hour or so later, Claire and Archie had located the last few stragglers in Camelot and convinced them (a) that they had no way of re-anchoring the castle to the cliffs, which was true, and (b) that they should grab their belongings and let her transport them to the ground or else be stranded on a flying castle for the rest of their lives.

Depositing them down in the town, she didn't let them know that The Plan, such as it was, involved Sir Galahad coming to live on that same castle for the rest of his life, nor that Galahad was going to have a very, very long life because of it.

If overexposure to magic leads to longevity, Claire considered, thinking of what their amulets were doing to Jim and Toby, and this is a flying castle, powered by the Heart of Avalon... well.

That was a lot of years, for someone who wasn't a wizard like Douxie or Merlin.

That was a lot of years for anyone, she thought, opening a portal back to the tower room.

Where she found Douxie tapping a jet black feather against his bottom lip as he contemplated an open book on the table before himself.

Claire exchanged a glance with Archie. "Douxie...?"

He startled, nearly knocking over a bottle by his elbow. With hasty muttered words ("fuzz" being chief among them), he righted and corked it before the ink spilled. "Sorry, sorry."

"No worries," she assured him. "Anything you want to talk about?"

He looked down. Didn't meet her eyes. "Not really."

Claire exchanged another look with Archie, who flew over and landed in front of his familiar, cuddling up against him. Douxie looked mildly surprised, but his arms came around Archie without hesitation. "You know you can always talk to me, right?" Archie asked, pressing up against Douxie's chest.

"I know, Arch. But some things I've just got to work out for myself."

"As long as you know I'll always lend a listening ear and a helping paw."

Douxie cracked a smile and hugged Archie to himself. "I know."

"What's that?" Claire asked, indicating the book.

"Ah." Douxie looked abashed. "This is... well, did I ever tell you Merlin had a book of healing magicks?"

"No." She crossed the space between them and started paging through the book.

"It doesn't work," Archie told her. "At least, it didn't for Douxie. And not for Merlin either."

"Oh." Claire deflated. "Is that why you had to learn Atlantean magic?" she asked Douxie.

"Atlantean...?" Archie's eyes were wide behind his glasses.

"It's why before I found that book, there was no healing magic," Douxie corrected her. "And I've, well." He took the book back from her and flipped toward the end. "I may've made an addition," he said, showing her the end pages.

She couldn't see any difference in the fonts as she scanned it. But.... "Oh," Claire said, realizing that the instructions were exactly the same as the ones he'd given her and Mary. "Wow." She peered closer. "You're good at forgery. Can I give you my parents' signatures, in case I have to skip school?"

That got a chortled snort and a silent laugh out of Douxie. "We'll talk about it," he promised her.

Claire beamed.

With a flick of his hand, the book went sailing high up into the shelves of Merlin's tomes, a treasure waiting to be discovered by some later sorcerer.

Douxie glanced around the room. His fingers drummed once on the table. "Think we're done here. What are we waiting around for?" His smile was suddenly bright and sly. "We've got fellow time travelers to retrieve and a few more loose ends to tie up before we go home. Let's get to it!"

Mary knelt by Lancelot, brushing a strand of golden hair back into place with fingers that almost didn't tremble. If she didn't look below his eyes, she could almost pretend that he was just resting. Just asleep. Not....

Darci knelt beside her. "Here." She offered a damp handkerchief.

"Thanks," Mary managed, throat tight. She dabbed at the blood trailing from Lancelot's mouth. It smeared. She tried again. Her vision blurred.

"Oh, Mare." Her friend's arms wrapped around her.

"I just." Her throat closed, hurting. She swallowed and blinked. Hot water fell. "I really liked him," she whispered. "He didn't want anything from me."

"He was," a deeper voice grated from the far side of the fallen man, "the best of knights."

Mary looked up through her tears to see a great tentacle stroke Lancelot's hair. Somewhere beyond it, an indistinct figure glowing a pale blue regarded them all.

"He was," she whispered.

"A valiant warrior," Zadra agreed, "possessed of uncommon courtesy."

Steve sniffed. "We'll never forget you, Lance," he promised.

Eli rubbed his eyes then resettled his spectacles. "We'll make the Knights of Arcadia, in your image," he promised the dead.

"With great hair," whispered Steve.

A whirl of shadows opened by Jim. He turned. "Claire!" Behind her was Douxie - their Douxie - and Archie.

"Jim!" Claire took his blue hands in hers. "Did everything go okay?"

He nodded. "I feel like I should be asking you that."

"Everything went as expected, more or less," Douxie reported. His gaze went beyond Jim. Jim half turned, to see some of the surviving Camelot knights attending to their fallen king. Trolls hung around nearby, but none within arms' reach of the surviving knights. Trolls in general were less attached to the dead than humans - and the tenuous trust Arthur had built with them, Jim knew, was fragile now that that king was dead.

King Arthur, who might be Douxie's....

"Doux--" Jim said, turning back.

He got a half smile and a half shrug. "I suppose I'll never know the truth."

"And you're okay with that?" asked Claire, scarily perceptive as always.

Douxie gave them honesty.. "Possibly not. Right now I really don't know how I feel about it. Anyway, we've got other things to worry about than my lineage."

Which was... sad but true. "It doesn't matter who your biological dad is," Jim told Douxie, not for the first time that day. "What matters is the ones who love you, whether or not they're yours genetically."

"You should know," Douxie sassed. "Well, my liege--"

"Douxie," Jim groaned.

"Bring them to me," Nimue's voice boomed from somewhere behind Douxie, causing the wizard to whirl.

"Wha...?" asked Steve.

"Bring them to me," Nimue repeated. The glowing blue lure, as Douxie had described it, rose high above the heads of anyone on the field. Her voice sweetened, as the surviving knights and squires looked at one another. "The fallen knights of Camelot."

"You're not-- you're not going to eat them, are you?" squeaked Steve.

Her tentacle patted him on the head. "I shall provide them a place to rest, until the darkest hour comes and Arthur rises again," she proclaimed.

Douxie's breath left him in a rush. "The eldest of oracles," he murmured. It sounded like a complaint. The wizard heaved a sigh. "Right, might as well do this proper."

"Proper?" Jim asked.

Douxie ignored him, staff appearing in one hand. A wave of his other hand righted Merlin's airship. Golden stairs that Jim had never before seen folded down its side, one after the other, like water spilling down a rocky runway. Douxie turned, magic gleaming in his eyes. Blue light formed crowns above Claire's head, and Mary's, and Darci's, and Aja's. "My ladies?" Douxie asked. The girls glanced at one another, then shrugged, turning back to him.

Douxie's smile took on a slight smirk. The blue light spilled down each of them, erasing all sweat and blood, all signs of strain. They each looked fresh and cool as a spring day. Their armor transmuted to long, elegant gowns in muted shades, heavily embroidered, shimmering with the undertones of something that might be silk.

"Guh." Jim's mouth went dry. He knew actual goddesses. More than one, even! But none had ever looked so regal, so divine, as Claire did in that moment.

"Uh, better close your mouth," Deya advised, coming up by his shoulder.

"What the hey?" Steve sounded as strangled as Jim felt. Toby made a meeping sound, his gaze fast on Darci.

Claire got it before Jim did. "Really?" she asked Douxie. Who was now wearing a hooded cloak, its rich black touched with bits of silver and gold. Like the girls, he looked like something out of a fantasy film.

"Uh, what?" Mary asked her.

Claire rolled her eyes. "Arthur was borne off to the fairy isle of Avalon by four queens dressed in samite," she explained. "Mythologically."

Douxie's smile, peeking out from his hood, was unrepentant.

"Oh, he is such a smartass," Krel muttered from somewhere. His tone, Jim thought, was almost admiring. Well, Krel could do worse for wizards to emulate....

"Well," Darci said practically, "myth's gotta come from somewhere, right? And we're here."

"Right you are," Aja agreed, testing her range of motion in the dress. "I like this outfit. It is most lively."

"So what happens now?" Deya asked Jim.

"Uhh." Shit, with Arthur dead, however temporarily, Jim was the king on the field, wasn't he? Crud. He cast a quick look around.

There were a lot more wounded and dead knights on the field than there were able bodied survivors.

Trolls might be less sentimental about the dead than humans were, and he didn't have the right to ask for favors, but... "Can I ask you for a favor?" he asked Deya.

She shifted her weight, eyes narrowing. "I'm listening."

No promises made without hearing the full request. Jim could respect that. "We need to help them get the knights laid to rest," he said, nodding at the field of blood and rock dust.

He could see the idea hit her. The thought of helping the men and women who had slaughtered her kind, who had held her captive for years and laughed about it at parties held above her dungeon cell. Deya's disgust rose to the fore, written across her face.

But she was the Trollhunter. She knew her people needed allies, however short that accord might last. And Jim had helped train her. She owed him.

She made an expression that let him know she didn't like the idea, then spun on her heel. "Hey, rockheads!" she called to the milling trolls. "We need help moving bodies."

Dwoza's trolls glanced at one another, then started forward from where they'd been vanishing back into the treeline.

Jim had matters well in hand. Douxie let himself sag slightly as bodies were loaded onto the airship. He knew them all, could name them - but they'd died centuries ago, and he had no tears for most of them anyway.

After this, he knew, Camelot's survivors would return to their home fiefs. No one would manage to fill the vacuum that Arthur Pendragon had left behind him. Within a decade, the political stability Camelot had brought would be gone.

And he and Archie would be far from here, learning new languages and new magics over on the continent.

His gaze lingered on the distant shapes of a younger Blinky and Aaarrrgghh, taking their first tentative steps into the friendship that would come to define both trolls. On Vendel, younger but still not carefree. On Deya, the first Trollhunter, who had burned so brightly that every one who followed her was lit by that flame.

At last all the fallen knights were aboard save for Lancelot, and Arthur.

Mary smoothed golden hair back one last time, then, with her own still shaky magic, levitated the fallen knight onto the airship. Zadra stood by the steps, her fist held over her breast as Lancelot passed, shadowed by Mary.

Galahad's helm was in his hands as Douxie, filling Merlin's role, wrapped Arthur in magic and spirited him away. The three other queens followed his corpse aboard. Douxie paused at the steps leading up to the airship.

"See you back at the castle?" he murmured to Jim.

Who nodded. "See you there."

Douxie tapped his vambrace against Jim's armored forearm for good luck, then boarded the ship. Its golden stairs folded away into nothingness behind him. He took his place as helmsman of this ship of the dead, four queens standing at the railings as the airship rose into the dark sky. Nimue turned, her glowing lure visible within the night forest, leading them away from the battlefield. Going to wherever she had chosen for Camelot's final resting place.

Douxie followed.

Eli swallowed, his eyes following the magic ship until it was out of sight. Next to him, Steve let out a happy sigh. "Wasn't she gorgeous?"

"Yeah, Steve," Eli said, his heart in his throat because he knew who Steve meant, and, sure, Aja had been pretty, but Mary....

Wow.

Wrapped in heartache and medieval elegance, she'd been breathtaking. He'd sat next to and behind her in classes for years, and he'd never known she could look like that. He would swear she'd grown three inches taller and a decade older, all in minutes.

He could feel his cheeks growing hot at the thought.

"Ugh. Are you two being mushy again?" asked Krel, coming over to them.

"What?!" Steve demanded. "I'm not mushy, dude!"

Krel's face took on a mocking expression as he fluttered his eyelids. "Oh, Aja~~" he sing-songed. "You're so pretty~~"

"Krel, you don't have to think she's awesome." Toby joined them. "I mean, she's your sister and all that. But statistically speaking...."

Krel waved a hand. "Of course she is awesome when she is not being a pain. She is my sister. That does not mean I want to experience the blond oaf being mushy about her."

"Dude," said Toby with feeling, "I don't think you can avoid that."

"Come on, guys," said Jim, still blue. "We need to head back to the castle."

Eli adjusted his glasses. "Why? What's going on back at the castle?"

The lava that had flowed from Bellroc's face had cooled, leaving black encrustations, glittering with obsidian, where their eyes had been. Though the heat was tempered, the shock and pain clearly was not. Nari bit her lip as she wrapped a length of red silk around her sibling's head, obscuring the injury, soothing the pain.

Some gods had gained power, or insight, from similar injuries. She did not know whether Bellroc would.

"We miscalculated," said Skrael, who had warned them against directly interfering in the mortals' battle. They had not listened, and Bellroc had paid the price. "The balance is lost."

The balance had already been lost, Nari thought with a spark of indignation. They had done nothing but make it worse. "I feel so much pain," she murmured. And she did not mean just Bellroc's, though that reverberated through their sibling bond. The land itself was now further soaked in blood, and while the plants would feed on it... she could feel heartstrings, both mortal and magical, twanging and snapped. "So many lives lost," she mused. And, hadn't that been the goal? But.... "This was not worth it."

Breathing through their loss, Bellroc stood. "We will readjust and return in time," they vowed.

Nari couldn't help but stare.

Bellroc had always been so strong, but couldn't they see? The three of them had tried to shift the balance and failed. Yet her sibling wanted to do the same thing again? Why did Bellroc even think it would work? Let alone the lack of proper tools to manipulate the field by proxy. Merlin was untouchable; Morgana, unreachable. She still lived, but whatever had been done to her had sealed her away from Nari's ability to sense. And there were no other wizards remotely powerful enough to tip the balance.

Nari's mouth set into a frown. "If you think that best," she said softly. If her siblings listened clearly, they would hear that she did not.

"Of course," said Bellroc, not listening.

"We will try again," agreed Skrael, drifting closer.

No, thought Nari. We won't.

Author's Note: Summer vacation has ended and my boys are back to school, so here, have the chapter it's taken me all summer to write! Douxie wanting to write "Do not buy Betamacks" is a reference to the book Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

[fic] [Transformers One] A Rising Tide

sakon76 — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 21:16:42 GMT

A Rising Tide
by K. Stonham
posted 29th June, 2025

There wasn't much trust in the beginning.

Mirage watched through the cafe windows as a bot pulled out of traffic, clumsily transformed, and opened the door. It chimed a gentle melody; the bot, clearly not expecting this, froze for a second, optics wide, looking up for the origin of the sound.

It was obvious what he was.

The miners were suddenly like any other bot, full sized and able to transform, and theoretically they should have been the same as everyone else... except for all the ways they weren't.

They were crude, people said. They were uneducated, people said. They only knew how to mine, people said, and now that energon once again flowed freely and their sole skill set was no longer needed, they were nothing but a drain on society.

Mirage certainly couldn't argue many of his peers' points. The service bot hesitantly approached the new customer for his order. He clearly wasn't familiar with the menu, asking finally what the server recommended. Which was more genteely sensible than Mirage would have expected. What he'd witnessed of the miners' behavior was certainly crude. That one bot who had killed Sentinel Prime and fought the new Prime, for instance... he was certainly a brute.

But the new Prime had also been a miner. And given his miraculous return from his fall into Cybertron's depths, healed of the grievous wound which should have killed him....

Let alone the fact that he held the Matrix of Leadership....

Well.

Apparently Primus himself approved of miners, or at least one particular miner, a good deal more than certain of Mirage's peers did. If the new Prime was a bit graceless, or didn't know how to behave in proper society, one had to make certain allowances. He'd clearly never been given the chance to learn. Not his fault. After all, one could not deny that the hand of their god was on him.

And how were the other former miners suddenly supposed to be educated when they'd never been educated? How were they supposed to be refined when they'd never been given the chance, or taught how to behave? It also certainly wasn't their fault that they didn't know how to do anything other than dig into the depths of Cybertron and bring back precious energon.

(Energon that Sentinel had been giving to the Quintessons. Mirage seethed. Bad enough that their leader had been a sham. That he was in league with, tithing to, the enemy who had tried to wipe out their entire race...! Well, that sort of behavior was far worse than any miner's, and he entirely deserved his fate.)

None of which mattered now, he decided, flicking the thought off into the aether where it belonged and composing his expression.

No, what mattered now was the bulky green mech who sat alone at a table at this cafe, glimmering cube of energon delivered before him, held lightly between his fingertips.

There was something about him. And it wasn't just the fact that he seemed almost painfully out of place.

Oh, he didn't walk gracefully, had practically clomped his way in, but... there was still that something.

He sat at his table alone, studying his treat, something resembling a smile on his face plate. Every now and again he looked around, like he couldn't believe he was here.

Mirage didn't think the mech had noticed him, or his observation. Mirage was very good at fading into the background.

...It was joy, Mirage decided finally. All the former miners he had seen, well, most of them anyway, barring those who had left with that Megatron mech, had a sense of luminous joy about them. It was different from almost anyone Mirage had ever known.

He tried to imagine spending his life as something smaller. Weaker. Less than everyone else.

He failed. He couldn't know what these mechs had been through.

But that was no reason not to be kind, he told himself. Their new Prime was kind, and look what it had led to...!

And their joy was positively magnetic.

Decided, Mirage rose from his own table, energon in hand, and crossed to the green mech's.

"May I join you?"

Blinking blue optics, the mech looked up at him in surprise, before indicating the open seat with an open hand. "Sure."

A more proper response would have been it would be my pleasure, but there was time for manners to come later.

He was being regarded with wariness, Mirage realized as he sat. Apparently some people had exhibited their own bad manners and not kept their unkind thoughts behind their own face plates. "I'm Mirage," he said, extending his hand.

A moment's hesitation, then a small nod, a hesitant, intrigued look. "Hound," the mech introduced himself, meeting that grasp.

Mirage smiled. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Hound's grip tightened, then relaxed. Deliberately. "Some folks wouldn't say so."

Mirage sniffed. "I am hardly 'some folks'."

That won a grin. "So it'd seem."

Mirage smiled back.

Orion Pax was a good mech. Had been a good mech. Was a good mech, confound it!

Jazz snarled and rubbed his fist into the side of his head, forcing himself to focus. Pax wasn't all that different just because he had a new name now, a shiny new chassis, and the Matrix of Leadership.

Well, okay, that last one was a little intimidating. Just a tiny bit. Being a clear sign of Primus' approval of the mech and all.

But under it, wasn't he still the same mech who had dropped everything and run back to save Jazz's scrawny aft from that collapsing mine shaft?

(Him and D-16, and oh how those paths had diverged....)

Point was, Jazz owed the mech his life, and he wasn't going to pay off that debt by making him feel like some kind of untouchable pariah.

"So," he said, strolling into the office at the top of the tower and hopping up onto the corner of the ridiculously big desk that, apparently, had formerly been Sentinel's, "how's it hanging, O.P.?" Lucky for him Optimus Prime had the same initials as Orion Pax because it made it easier for him to keep his vow to treat the mech like he was a person and not a portrait.

Orion's... Optimus' optics were looking more than a little overwhelmed as he looked up from his datapad. "I begin to think," he said, "that I am not suited to being in charge of an entire planet."

Jazz laughed, delighted. "And that's what makes you the mech for the job," he pointed out, hopping back off the desk and coming around to see what was overwhelming the mech's processors. "Betcha Sentinel never, ever said that."

He was awarded the ghost of a smile even as he took in what he was looking at. "Okay," he said, plucking the pad from Optimus' hands, "I am a reasonably bright mech, but I'm taking two things away from this."

Optimus' brows rose.

"One," said Jazz, "you need secretaries or underlings or minions or something, because sure as starlight, Sentinel wasn't doing all this himself. Two," he said, fingers tapping on the datapad, "I think something shady must be going on with this proposed dam construction, because these numbers don't look right to me." He tilted his head to one side. "Want me to see if I can find out what?"

"Please," said Optimus, relief in his voice.

"And I'll see if I can't finagle you a mech or two to help you with all of this," Jazz added. "Because no disrespect to Elita-1, because she could kill me and I'd never see it coming, but I think she and Bee aren't what you need for this kinda thing."

"If you can, I will owe you an eternal debt," said Optimus.

Jazz stopped on his way to the door. Turned around. Hesitated. Because the words I owe you a life debt weren't the ones he needed to give right now. They weren't what he needed to say - or what Optimus needed to hear.

"When Darkwing told us you were dead," he said quietly, "it hurt all of us who knew you, O.P.. Because as much trouble as you got into... you always had a smile. Not everyone in the mines got a spark like yours. Ah!" he said, holding up a hand as the Prime opened his mouth to speak. "We mourned you, and D-16, much as we could on those endless shifts. But then you came back to us," he said softly, stepping closer to the mech so many thought of as only an idol. "And you told us things that hurt. Things that hurt us because they were true, and we'd been hurt all our lives without ever knowing it. You gave us a chance to fix things. Nobody'd ever given us any kind of power before, O.P., an' you know it. But more than that, you gave us something even better." Jazz smiled.

"Oh?" asked Optimus.

"You gave us hope, O.P.," said Jazz, flicking his doorwings. "Even before you were a Prime. You did that all by yourself, just bein' you. And for that... let us bear you up. Let us help you forge that brighter future you've always been dreaming of. You don't have to do this all by yourself. We're with you. All of us."

He got a genuine smile for that. "Thank you, Jazz. I could... use the help," Optimus admitted.

"De-le-ga-tion," Jazz sang to him, and disappeared out the door, dodging around Elita-1, who was coming in.

Prowl dropped his head into his hands, fingers rubbing over his brows. He could feel a processor ache coming on. Sideswipe and Smokescreen's argument kept going, increasing in volume and they were going to come to blows any minute now and then Sunstreaker would somehow know and come to his crechemate's defense and then it would end up as another brawl--

A sharp whistle cut through the verbal battle, drawing attention to the mech leaning against the door frame.

"Mechs," said Jazz, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate out, "beat it."

Smokey trudged away, though not without a final glare at Sideswipe. Sideswipe stalked after him but was stopped by Jazz's hand on his shoulder. "Go the other way an' cool off," Jazz instructed him.

"Or else what?" Sideswipe snarled.

"Or else I reprogram your recharge berth," Jazz snarled.

That took Sideswipe aback. He clearly had some idea of just what Jazz might reprogram into said machine; Prowl didn't, and was glad of that. After a moment, the red mech nodded and sullenly stalked off in the other direction from Smokescreen.

"Aw, poor Prowler," crooned Jazz, dropping the tough act the minute the battling pair were gone. "You're really not built for this, are you?" He came around the desk, dropping the datapad he carried, and stood behind Prowl. A careful digit ran across the top of one doorwing. "These still giving you trouble?" he asked, voice quiet. Almost a balm.

Prowl nodded. "They're too sensitive," he admitted. Smokescreen's weren't. Bluestreak's weren't. Even Jazz's doorwings, though tuned higher than either of Prowl's crechemates, weren't this sensitive. The overload of feedback from his new appendages almost made Prowl yearn for the mines.

"Shh, shh," Jazz soothed. His fingers ghosted across Prowl's back for a moment, then his thumbs dug in hard right above the doorwings, compressing the spot where the data collection cable ran right under the surface of the plating.

The world whited out for a moment. Everything was... silent. No noise, overwhelming. Just blissful white static.

It only lasted for a moment, but when Prowl came back to, the world felt like it had undergone a hard reset.

"Those Decepticons ever get you right here, you're done for," Jazz murmured.

"Like I'm important enough for them to target," Prowl murmured in reply.

"Don't gotta be important," Jazz said. "You just gotta be in their way. As to that...." He walked back around the desk and carelessly flung himself into the chair before it. "Got a proposal for you." He nodded at the datapad.

Cautious, Prowl picked it up. Knowing Jazz, the pad could contain... well, almost anything.

He trusted the mech. That didn't mean Prowl understood how he thought.

"You're wasted trying to break up fights when you're almost breaking down doing it," Jazz told him bluntly. "Think I've found something you'd be better at, and it'd be a better use of that big processor of yours."

"Oh?" Prowl thumbed the pad on and was met with intriguing columns of file names. He opened one. It was... a financial report?

Jazz's feet met the ground as he sat up, suddenly serious. "You're good at data analysis. You were always helping Elita-1, predicting with pretty darn good accuracy where the next energon vein was going to open."

Prowl nodded absently, paging down. The numbers were falling into patterns, easy enough to follow.

"Optimus," said Jazz, "is drowning."

Prowl looked up, alarmed.

Jazz waved a hand at him. "Not literally. But he needs help with this kind of thing. It ain't what he's best at. And you are good at it."

"I'm hardly an appropriate rank to assist a Prime," Prowl demurred.

Jazz snorted. "Mech's from the mines just like us. You've seen him up to his aft in trouble."

"That was before," said Prowl. "Besides, it's hardly like I have a university education and the training necessary--"

Jazz leaned forward. "Optimus is learning on the job. You gonna do less than that?"

Prowl hesitated.

"He saved us," Jazz said lowly, enunciating each word, "and he gave us the chance to save ourselves. You gonna leave him to flail, when he's in trouble?"

No one would ever call Elita-1 soft. That wasn't who she was. She had worked her aft off to get to the top of the heap in the mines, and when that had crumbled underneath her, she'd gone into her new demoted position determined to get back to the top of the slagheap. When that had been derailed by two halfwit miners with a penchant for getting into trouble....

Well, knowing what she knew now, she wasn't sure she'd go about anything differently. Which was a strange thing for her to think, that she'd choose to follow one of Orion Pax's half-cocked schemes.

Except that he wasn't Orion Pax anymore, and while he'd been a decent miner and a better than decent mech, he was now the leader of an entire planet whose upper echelons had been literally decimated in the wake of Sentinel's betrayal and Megatron's vengeance.

(She couldn't completely blame the mech; Sentinel had richly deserved to die. But Orion had been right; D-16 hadn't deserved being an executioner. And now Megatron only wanted to burn the world for betraying him. Which sent chills down her back struts.)

During Megatron's rampage, many of the government employees who really knew what they were doing had been killed. Others, for reasons of their own, had resigned afterward. She'd stepped up to help Optimus-newly-Prime run Cybertron, and so far that felt like running around blind, putting out mine fire after mine fire and never managing to get ahead of the arson.

And she wasn't even Primus' chosen one.

She rubbed at the back of his head as he rocked his head back and forth on the surface of the desk. Sometimes he needed her to be strong. But sometimes, she'd come to realize, he needed her to be gentle too. To accept his vulnerability. Which was maybe its own kind of strength.

She was musing on the paradox of being strong enough to be weak when the door opened.

"...I can come back later," Jazz said after a second.

If Elita-1 had possessed laser eyes, Jazz would have had several smoking holes in his torso.

He held up his hands, grinning, as he proceeded into the office. "O.P., I may have a solution for you."

Optimus raised his head.

With a flourish, Jazz presented the mech that followed him, holding a data pad.

"Prowl?" Elita-1 asked, surprised.

Prowl looked up, then back down at the datapad. What he saw there seemed to give him resolve; his posture straightened, doorwings raising. He looked back up, right into Optimus' eyes. "I can help you with this," he said. "Please allow me."

Elita-1's fingers tightened on Optimus' head. Prowl had always been good at finding patterns, down in the mines. Was that a transferable skill? Could he help with all this bureaucratic nonsense that had been dumped on their heads in the wake of Sentinel's death and Megatron's rebellion?

It was hard to change the world. It was even harder to keep it running smoothly afterwards.

Optimus sat up, her fingers falling away from his head. "If you could," he said. A wry smile appeared on his face. "Primus knows I could use the help."

"Yes," said Prowl dryly. "This isn't exactly your forte." Unspoken was that Optimus' prior forte had been breaking and entering, public disrespect, and generally making a nuisance of himself. "But it is mine. Or... it could be."

Optimus' smile was growing. "The spark that resides in your core?" he asked softly.

"Indeed," said Prowl. His fingers tapped at the datapad. "Now, I have only made a preliminary analysis of these files, but I have some recommendations...."

Only Elita-1 noticed as Jazz slipped quietly out the door.

Hound only jumped a little as a quiet mech materialized by his side as he walked from the cafe to his domicile. "Make a new friend?" Jazz asked lightly, looking behind them where the interesting mech from the cafe--Mirage--was going the other way.

"Maybe," said Hound. "What can I do for you, Jazz?"

"I need to check something out for Optimus," Jazz answered. "Interested in a bit of a road trip?"

"Sure. We going anywhere in particular?"

Jazz tapped his lips, indicating it was a secret and that he'd give Hound the information later via data cable. "Tell me about your new acquaintance. He good? He playing you?"

"Name's Mirage," said Hound. "I don't think he is. He didn't look at me like I was something he'd stepped in, anyway. Gave me his comm code," he added after a minute.

"Always good to have friends." Jazz laced his hands behind his head, strolling on like he hadn't a care in the world. Like he wasn't up to something shady (again).

Hound thought about Mirage's careful, precise behavior. The graceful way he'd moved. The unexpected kindness he'd shown to a stranger, murmuring a few tips that would make Hound stand out less.

And the way Hound hadn't even noticed him until the mech had approached him.

There was potential there, and wasn't that what they all had, now? The chance to be more than met the optics.

Hound decided to roll with his instincts. "He might be a good fit for your team," he offered Jazz.

Whose arms fell as he turned to look at Hound, expression surprised. "Huh," was all he said. "Shiny high class mech like him?"

Hound shrugged. "We don't have to end where we started," he pointed out.

"Huh," said Jazz again. "Well, who knows. We'll see, maybe. After we get back from this road trip."

Hound laughed. "Onward to adventure?"

Jazz offered a fist bump. "You know it, mech."

Author's Note: So I finally saw Transformers One this week, with my sons, at the $2 Summer Fest the local theater runs for kids. The movie brought back to the surface a love I've had literally since I was eight years old in 1984, watching cartoons on my parents' living room floor. So this got written that night. As Peter Cullen said once about coming back to play Optimus Prime, returning to writing in this fandom felt like "slipping into an old pair of very comfortable shoes that you haven't worn for a while."

That said, Chris Hemsworth is no Peter Cullen, and Scarlett Johannson... sadly was playing the Black Widow again, just in metallic pink this time. *sigh* But I laughed out loud at the GoBots crack, and felt so much love for all the callbacks to previous TFs endeavors that it felt like it was shining out of me. The moment of Orion's fall and Optimus' rise felt just as pivotal for me as when I was a kid and Hot Rod became Rodimus. But my favorite moment in the entire film was when Orion went back to the other miners and told them that Sentinel had lied to everyone. That he had stolen not only the energon, the leadership of the planet... but also who they were all supposed to be. And out of that moment, this thought of the aftermath of the film, and the inherent growing pains of a former caste society, was born.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 189/?

sakon76 — Sat, 10 May 2025 16:09:41 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 10th May, 2025

"Oh, clever," Skrael said approvingly, nodding as he watching the battle. "She draws off the wizards, leaving only the mortals to fight--"

"And now that he is left undefended, she returns to destroy her treacherous brother," Bellroc finished for their sibling, their voice a growl with an undertone of crackling flame.

"I told you she was a good choice," Nari sing-songed, waving a reproving finger at her siblings. "You should trust me more." She crouched down, watching with avid eyes the battle below the gods' perch. The war between mortal and magic had reached a turning point here, they could all feel it.

What would happen next was important.

Claire bit her bottom lip. She could step out, help take down Morgana's golden specter - but would that be tipping her hand too early? Because Morgana's creation moved like Morgana herself, there one instant and gone the next. The shadow cast by a flickering flame. Merlin's potshots and Douxie's were having no effect.

Claire couldn't move like that. At least not yet. She was quick, and by now redirecting momentum through the shadows was second nature. But Morgana had been a mistress of shadows for years longer than Claire.

Then Douxie was knocked down and Merlin was knocked back, and Claire tasted blood and pain as her teeth actually bit and drew blood.

Merlin remained kneeling, clutching his chest where black ether leaked around his fist. His face was almost gray. He wasn't Claire's favorite person by a long shot, but....

She made to move, to distract Morgana.

But before she could, Douxie hauled himself back upright. Though Claire couldn't say exactly what, something was different in his stance now.

When he opened his eyes, they gleamed not with the bright blue of his magic, but with the same gleaming reflection of a cat's eyes in the dark.

Tapetum lucidum, Claire thought. She'd seen it once before, when they'd been in the Trollmarket pub and Douxie had been checking over everyone's auras....

He's looking for magic. Looking at magic. What's he looking for?

Morgana's shadow cackled with an eerie echo of her voice as it darted high into the air, gathering golden power into a burst that it fired at Douxie--

--who raised his arm with his staff, never even glancing at Morgana's shadow as he studied their surroundings.

The attack splashed off his shield, like a water balloon bursting.

Douxie half turned, still seeming to pay no attention to Morgana's shadow and her increasing volley of attacks as he surveyed the terrain. His eyes narrowed, then his lips curved up into a smile.

Finally he looked up at Morgana's proxy.

"Well," he said, and Claire's heart leapt at just how casual his tone was. How confident. "Let's dance, shall we?"

Darci did not like battle. She hadn't liked it the first time, when she had been relatively safe atop the buildings ringing Arcadia's central square. She liked it even less this time, when she had stinky armor and a heavy sword in her hands and huge giant evil trolls trying to kill her personally.

But hell if she was going to let Mary do this alone without someone to guard her back! And Mary would never back down from a fight, even when she should. Just, her usual weapon was sweet, poisonous words on social media. Not lightning. A bit less potentially fatal for all involved.

But Mary was nothing if not adaptable, and the low cackling laughter Darci heard from behind her back would have worried her more except she'd heard it too many times over teen magazines and new nail polish shades.

(Mary might turn into an evil queen sorceress someday, but even if she did, Darci had faith in her and Claire's ability to team up and sit on their friend until she calmed down and knocked it off.)

So Darci grunted and swung and blocked and did all the moves that all her training over the last couple months had been trying to make automatic and instinctive. The problem was, those moves weren't instinctive, and she was in over her head and knew it.

But she was not going to abandon Mary!

And her nerves were not helped by the Gumm-Gumms roaring and their king making horrible, loud proclamations about what he and his troops were going to do to all of them, King Arthur most especially--

"I'd give real money," Darci muttered, "if he'd shut up."

"Coming through, Darci!" a familiar voice called, and then Toby, in his shining armor, was rolling through in front of her like a silver bowling ball. She could practically hear the sound effect of pins getting knocked down in a strike as his momentum sent Gumm-Gumms flying, falling gray and stony lifeless to the ground, giving her breathing room.

"When this is over," Darci promised as Toby smoothly untucked from his roll and came back-to-back-to-back with her and Mary, making their duo a triad, "I am going to give you so many kisses."

He didn't respond verbally to that, but his grin was broad enough to see from space.

Magic is emotion. Douxie had told Claire that once, and it was true. It had always been true, no matter how much Merlin tried to excise it from him. Tried to excise it from Morgana.

He had mere minutes before Arthur would be murdered, and Morgana's pain and wrath would drive her mad, fuel her magery to new heights, because magic, after all, came from the heart--

But he'd had insight and time, this time, to look at the ley lines.

They'd been led by Morgana from one place of fell power to another. You just didn't get good vibes in places that were soaked with mass murder or, in this case, titan death.

But the thing was, power was power. And Douxie had survived long enough that he knew the feeling of a knife in his heart. Grief, pain, anger... you could master them, use them to fuel your work. If you were careful, and held true to yourself (ha, something else he hoped he'd helped Claire learn), you could work with the darkest of powers and come out the other side unscathed. Though that was always a big if and something of a calculated battle.

"Douxie, what are you planning?" asked Archie. He sounded worried.

He cast his familiar a grin. "Trust me," said Douxie.

Morgana's shadow was an automaton. Like Gunmar's homunculi, it had neither will nor intelligence. Only orders and an echo of its creator's purpose.

So when Douxie stepped atop a crossing of ley lines, a node, and tapped into its power, let that dark magic augment the spell form he cast....

Well, the shadow Morgana had cast barely had time to scream in rage before it was caught. It screamed again, a high withering sound as it smoked apart, its ashes blown away by the breeze channeling through the canyon.

He could feel Archie staring at him. Feel Merlin staring at him. And the power throbbing beneath his feet, invisible, intangible, whispered sweetly how easy that had been, how he hadn't even needed to strain himself....

Douxie took a breath and stepped away.

Poisoned ley lines and nodes could be purified. It was hard work and took time, but it could be done. He'd watched and learned over the centuries all the ways other cultures did it. Most of the time it worked.

Twice, he'd seen the purification fail and the wizard attempting to heal the wronged energy be instead consumed by it.

He could do it. He could spend a lifetime soothing this node, and the one at the place where Merlin had been stabbed, and the one under Area 49-B, and the next one... the list went on, seemingly infinite. It would be noble work, even.

But right now Douxie didn't have time.

"You... didn't succumb," Merlin croaked as Douxie reached him, and went to one knee before his master.

Douxie met Merlin's eyes. "Succumbing to darkness is always a choice," he said, dozens of lectures about slippery slopes echoing in his ears. "No matter what I am... I choose to leave the world a better place than I found it."

Shouldering Merlin's weight, he helped the injured sorcerer to his feet.

The gods were watching the battle. Jim knew that. Knew that somewhere lurking in the shadows, the Arcane Order waited. Knew, too, that Nimue was around somewhere because Steve had told him how she'd yeeted Bular out of the range of the black hole that Killahead would become.

No pressure, he thought, deftly twisting around a charging Gumm-Gumm and sinking his magically copied sword into its back. The Gumm-Gumm went gray and shattered, crumbling away into a pile of stone even as Jim whirled to meet the next.

There were more Gumm-Gumms than knights and trolls combined. Jim didn't know where Gunmar got all them from! Except, he kind of did. Magic.

"Glorious carnage!" bellowed Varvatos from somewhere. Jim suppressed a smile. The less-trained of his team, he knew, were sticking together, watching each other's backs. Varvatos and Zadra had no such hesitancy - and neither did Aja. Though he noticed Zadra was sticking nearer to her princess than anyone else, unsure of the queen-in-waiting's martial skills. Krel was - Jim gave a quick glance around - with Steve and Eli. And if he was using his serrator more as a shield than a sword, well, they all had their strengths.

Jim's thoughts circled back to the gods watching this fight even as Arthur, on his knees, prayed to Nimue for a blessing - and got it, Excalibur glowing gold and actually biting into Gunmar, who howled with pain and rage. Jim's eyes widened. Either that hadn't happened the first time, or he'd missed it. Also, Nimue could grant blessings? He tucked that fact away for possible future use.

It made sense why the Arcane Order were here. Morgana was their champion and they wanted to see humans obliterated from orbit. Gunmar and his army were probably their best shot for that.

But why was Nimue here? Was it because of Arthur's presence, or something bigger?

Jim remembered Douxie telling him that Merlin had locked away a lot of old gods. Hence why Herne probably wasn't here. And Merlin had said that Douxie was fated to free them, which was going to be a whole thing to deal with (on top of everything else) once they got back to the future. But if those gods hadn't been locked up, Jim wondered... would they also be here, watching?

Was this one of those moments of history that were what Douxie had called a fixed point?

...There were time travelers here, Jim realized, messing with the Battle of Killahead.

Cold swept through him as he realized that this absolutely was a fixed point in time, and that gods were watching to see who would win: man or magic.

...Definitely no pressure.

The humans were winning. Skrael seethed, but held fast. They were bound by ancient compacts; they could not interfere.

"Unacceptable!" Bellroc howled, pointing their staff at the battlefield.

Skrael and Nari exchanged a speaking glance. Bellroc had always been the hotheaded one of their trio; they acted to temper their sibling, the same way as Nari and Bellroc worked to instill emotions into Skrael's cold pragmatism, or Bellroc and Skrael reined in Nari's whimsy and flightiness.

"We can not intervene," Skrael reminded his sibling. "There will be consequences." Consequences which might well see them, and all their plans, extinguished. They had time, after all; they could wait for another chance to alter the course of the world.

But Bellroc did not see things that way, and in the heat of the moment, clearly did not care. "Enough. Waiting!" they howled, and stamped their staff to the ground.

The three of them reappeared in the middle of the battle in a fiery tornado.

"So showy," muttered Nari, but prowled forward on all fours, following in Bellroc's wake as their sibling blasted knights and trolls away.

(Off to the side, Arthur's golden knight was crushed to death by Gunmar's son. Humans screamed in denial. One, an untrained lightning witch, summoned fury down from the heavens with her tears. Her lover's murderer dodged the consequences of his actions - but not the great tentacle that wrapped around him from within the woods, bashed him against the ground several times, and flung him into the distance.)

"Pfah," Skrael noted, never breaking step as he froze knights in their armor. "Nimue always did have a care for these mortals."

Nari, tiny but fierce, giggled as she effortlessly kicked humans into trolls, the force of her blows killing both. Bellroc, still fuming and making for the heart of the battle, said nothing. They were about to make a fatal mistake, Skrael feared, but... a tiny part of him wanted to see what Bellroc would do, and how great the fallout would be.

And that heart of the battle, Skrael saw, was the human king on his knees, being tortured by his sister.

"You chose wisely," Skrael murmured to his own sister.

Nari giggled again. "Why, thank you, Skrael."

But not for nothing was the king a divine king. Nimue's chosen, Skrael was reminded, had always been able to call on their powers of binding easily. And despite his actions that had rendered Morgana into their hands... Arthur's claim on her heart was older than the Arcane Order's.

He watched as their weapon fell to the human king's honeyed words of guilt and change and redemption and all other such soft things.

Skrael could feel his lips drawing back, baring his teeth as their Champion fell to the enemy side.

Bellroc snarled and crossed the battlefield, striking the human king from behind, stabbing him through the heart with fire. "Merlin's puppet is gone," they snarled at Morgana as the man fell. "Go finish it. Show us your loyalty, Morgana!"

Morgana screamed to the heavens as golden light erupted from her. By Skrael's side, Nari twisted her hand, directing the flow of energy in their Champion's enchanted hand, in all her magic. Reminding her who was her master.

"She will obey," Nari said sweetly, softly. She smiled as she said it, imposing her will on the witch's.

"You will break her," Skrael observed.

"Don't be so silly, Skrael," Nari chided. "They are resilient... and malleable."

The light, and the screams, increased until Morgana fell to her knees.

When she looked up again, there was nothing human left in her eyes. Morgana stood, and shot to the skies, the shadows, and the battle ahead of her.

Tracking her flight, Skrael wondered idly what consequences his siblings' interference had unleashed.

Morgana reappeared in a wash of shadows and fell to her knees atop the node, her face downcast and shaded. A series of hitching sounds came from her. Douxie couldn't tell if they were sobs or laughter. Or, given Morgana's complexities, possibly both.

"Morgana?" Merlin asked.

Her head snapped up, green eyes full of rage and pain. "It's your fault," she snapped. "You're the reason Arthur is gone!"

Even though he'd known it was coming, the confirmation of Arthur's death felt like a rock sinking through Douxie.

Merlin staggered back as though she'd dealt him a physical blow. "Gone?" he breathed, voice incredulous.

Teeth bared in a snarl, Morgana rose into the air, glutted on power. She was drawing from the node, Douxie saw with his Sight, the same as he had. But where he'd been cautious to not let it affect him, Morgana in her grief and pain clearly had no such concerns, and the poisoned power was amplifying her already volatile emotions. He could practically see them seesawing through her, eroding her connection to sanity.

Because Merlin hadn't been there. Hadn't done the murder.

Had, in fact, protected Arthur since he'd been born.

But Morgana couldn't see that now. All she could feel was loss, and all she could remember was that Merlin was an enemy.

None of which made her any less dangerous.

Let's dance, he thought, and set about distracting her while Merlin reeled from the loss of his second son.

Arthur's death caused a moment of stillness in the battle as Gunmar gloated and knights wept. Only Blinky and Dictatious, swatting away goblins, didn't seem to notice.

But this was it. "Deya!" Jim yelled. She turned toward him. "The bridge! Now!"

With a sharp nod, she started running toward it.

And Gunmar didn't know what they had planned, but he clearly realized they had something planned, because he shouted for his troops to kill them.

Jim fell into position on Deya's left side, Toby on her right. All three Trollhunters running together, Jim and Toby taking out the Gumm-Gumms who tried to stop them, as Deya focused on getting her amulet to the bridge.

"Touchdown! Touchdown!" Steve chanted off to the side.

Deya leapt, as Jim spun around his own center of mass, hurling one Gumm-Gumm into another.

Deya bounded, as Toby swung Eclipse back and forth, hitting Gumm-Gumm after Gumm-Gumm with the pure distilled essence of light, crumbling them to rubble.

Deya reached out, suspended for one moment in the air--

--and the amulet slapped home into the center of the bridge, opening a howling vortex into another dimension.

Morgana poured power on, trying to break through Douxie's shield. But he'd gotten enough power off the node to hold fast, to let Merlin come to his own conclusion.

Which the older wizard did, stumping up behind Douxie, leaning weight on his staff. "She's too powerful. We have no choice but to seal her away."

And, oh, those words clearly poured oil on the flames, because Morgana's eyes narrowed.

Not that Douxie didn't have his own feelings about being sealed away, but....

But I'm not the point right now. Time enough for that in nine centuries. "I'll hold her off while you start the--" Douxie said, before Merlin was shoving him out of the way even as a surge of Morgana's renewed fury broke Douxie's shield.

Douxie flew through the air, cracking his head against the stone. "Douxie!" Archie cried, and when Douxie pushed himself upright, his stomach rebelling, there were two of his familiar looking worriedly at him.

Beyond Archie-and-Archie was the hovering shape of Merlin, his staff blown to who knew where, bound in Morgana's magic the same way Douxie had once been bound in Merlin's.

Oh no, Douxie realized, as he hadn't the last time, swallowing down sudden nausea, if we don't seal her first, she's going to seal us.

The world was spinning as he pushed to his feet, using his staff and Archie to steady himself. His lunch wanted to make a reappearance. Morgana's arched, cruel laughter only made the concussion headache worse.

Douxie swallowed, and teased forth a thread of power, trying to heal the damage inside his skull without being obvious about it. He'd done it for his own younger self not that long ago. But it was harder now, his focus wavering. Fear gave an edge ("Always be afraid," he could practically hear Jim murmuring), but he could feel panic nipping too close at its heels.

"Oh, a shame," Morgana taunted, flying lower. "Poor little Douxie finally gets his staff, just in time to die with it."

Did she realize he was his older self, not his younger?

Does it even matter? Douxie wondered.

"You can't even wield it," Morgana snarled, closing in for hand-to-hand combat. He tried to hold her off, but he was out of practice, out of focus. She wiped the floor with him. "You should stick to your usual tricks!"

On the floor again, Douxie's fingers tightened on his staff. He could fight her, he knew he could.

He knew he should.

"Say goodbye to your familiar," mocked Morgana, leaning in for the kill.

"Hey!" A blast of swirling amethyst magic knocked Morgana away. "Hands off my teacher!"

Claire. Douxie was suddenly so, so grateful for his friend. But he couldn't let her fight Morgana alone. Suddenly uncaring of anyone seeing, he pulled more magic to the surface, wreathing his hands and head in blue light. Slowly the pounding abated. He felt like he could think again.

Just in time to hear Morgana calling Claire a "Treacherous handmaiden" and threaten to end her.

"You can try," Claire shot back defiantly, amethyst magic holding its own, if barely, against gold.

Douxie stood.

No one hurts my student.

"Arch," he mumured. "Find Merlin's staff."

His familiar nodded and arrowed off, while Douxie gathered himself up, flexing his fingers.

If he was going to do this, he was going to do this right.

No one had used Bardic magic in eight thousand years.

Time to reinvent the wheel.

Spellcaster shifted in Douxie's hands to its guitar form, and he let himself sink into music and magic and the point where they met. Magic had written forms: runes and spell circles and precise alignments to compass points and the sun and moon and stars. Music too had written forms and rules, all the underlying structures and repetitions that made it music and not merely noise. Krel, crystalline being that he was, saw those as lattices. To Douxie, they were refrains and choruses. He could jazz his way around them, but the structure, the shape of the spell, hung on those repeats. In the old timeline, he and Krel had almost finished a hybrid system of notation. Douxie took that now, overlaid it in his mind to the spell that would seal Morgana away, and poured raw emotion into it. All his sorrow, all his fear, everything that went into I don't want to do this but you give me no other choice. His fingers followed his feelings almost unconsciously, nine hundred years of music informing his playing.

It wasn't like healing the heartstones, because there was no one else working this spell with him. He had to depend on his own riffs, his own timing, his own knowledge.

It was working. It was working far better than it had the first time he'd used Spellcaster this way. Morgana dodged and wove and was caught in his spell. The power flowed through Douxie, wanting him to lose himself in it-- But no. Magic required structure. It subverted the rules, but it also had its own. Grinning, he bent the power to what he needed it to do.

Archie reappeared, bearing the Staff of Avalon. Once it was in its master's hand, Morgana's bonds broke, and the wide-eyed wizard dropped to the floor.

He stared a moment longer at Douxie, as though he, a master wizard, could not believe what he was seeing.

Then he crossed the space between them and laid a hand on Douxie's shoulder. "Hisirdoux," said his master. "Allow me to assist you."

Douxie didn't shift his gaze, fast on Morgana, only nodded. He couldn't lose focus, not for an instant, or the spell would come undone and dissipate. Doing magic this way was trickier than he'd thought. Compared to Merlin's style of magic, it was like dancing backward and in heels. Which was a thing he'd actually done, so he was pretty sure he could master this too, given time.

Under the music, he heard the Staff of Avalon thump on the floor beside him, sending out a ripple of power that tied into his spell, a bass line underlining his invocation, supporting and reinforcing the magic.

The two master wizards spoke as one, their tandem spell perfect. "Sigilia Infractum... Causera!"

A grunt and a cry, as if Claire had been knocked away. And Morgana's shriek of "NO!" as the spell caught her.

Not daring to stop playing, Douxie opened his eyes to see her form wreathed in twining sapphire and emerald that crept up from her feet as she struggled, binding her. "I will destroy you all," Morgana spat. "No matter what it takes, no matter where you go... I will end all that you love until you feel my agony!"

As though she was the only person who had ever lost the people she loved, Douxie thought. Beside him, Merlin stayed fast, the color draining rapidly from his face. Douxie could see the tremble in his hands. But still the injured wizard held on, standing, until his work was done.

Morgana managed one last blast of power, which Claire, now on her feet again, caught in a shadow portal.

Morgana growled. "I swear on your lives, I shall rise again!" vowed Morgana, and Douxie could feel the power in that oath, like a icy shiver crawling up his back.

"Been there, seen that," he murmured.

"You don't win," Claire agreed, coming to stand by his side. "See you in nine hundred years."

And then... it was done. Morgana was frozen, bound.

Douxie's fingers came to a halt, ending the spellcasting.

"What dreadful music," Merlin said conversationally, then collapsed, falling like a sack of barley. The Staff of Avalon clattered to the floor beside him.

After a moment, he began to snore.

Douxie swallowed. The sudden silence rang in his ears. His fingers buzzed. But there were still things that needed to be done. "Claire, if you would do the honors." He gestured at Morgana's frozen form.

She grinned fiercely. "With pleasure." She raised her hands, eyes glowing amethyst. With a push, she sent Morgana to her prison within the heartstone that would eventually become Trollmarket's. By the time the trolls got there, it would have grown around her, encasing her in crystal.

Legs suddenly weak, Douxie sat down on the floor. Archie was still staring at where Morgana had been. "I think we just saved history," he told Claire as she joined him.

"Again," she said with a smile. As before, the two of them high-fived.

Archie finished his glaring and turned, bounding into Douxie's lap, purring so loudly Douxie could feel it in his toes. "I somehow suspect you've done this before," his familiar told Douxie, "but nonetheless, Merlin would be proud. I'm proud."

Douxie hugged him. "We did do this before. Just wish I'd been able to hit Morgana with my guitar this time around."

"Hit her with your what?" Archie's eyes were round.

Claire laughed. "You did what? I missed that last time!"

"Didn't I ever tell you?" Douxie wondered.

"No, you didn't!"

"I know I told Krel."

"Krel doesn't tell us everything," Claire informed him. "Mostly because he knows that we wouldn't understand half of what he says," she admitted.

"Oh. Oh well." Douxie sighed a long breath out. "We should... probably go find how the bridge went."

Claire made a face. "Ugh. Yeah." She glanced over at Merlin's form. "Maybe with a quick stop at the castle first."

"Agreed." Much as his body didn't want to rise and move again, Douxie stood and offered a hand to Claire, helping her get upright too. "Right, let's get on with it."

Author's Notes: After sixteen months of battling cancer, my uncle died this week, so I'm on an emotional roller coaster. It hurts to know I'll never see him again, never hear him again, never be hugged by him again. I was going to call him the evening he passed away, but I was too late. If you love someone, please let them know; remember that some day you may not have that chance again. So, goodbye, Uncle G, and safe travels in whatever comes after. I love you, and thank you for everything.

And, in a tone switch (I wrote this next bit before the above happened): T1rkb made me aware that Your Future has its own TVTropes page (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/YourFutureHasntBeenWrittenYet). Which is something I've never had for any of my other stories! So I'm delighted. But while I was poking through it, I noticed the "Adaptational Species Change" tag for Toby... so, since I've never mentioned it before, here's the evidence I built that from:

(1) Blinky saying, in the first episode, that Toby's mineral knowledge was positively troll-like.
(2) Toby being a dead ringer for the Shattered King of the Quagawumps.
(3) After the whole thing in Gatto's belly, Toby wanders off and eats troll snacks in the Trollmarket pub, which I honestly thought was going to be a lead-up to him turning into a troll while Blinky turned into a human but wasn't.
(4) When Merlin awoke, he asked Toby what sort of troll he was.
(5) Nana Domzalski having fought in WW1, so unnatural familial longevity.
(6) The fact that no one else in Arcadia has the same body structure as Toby and Nana. The only other person who comes close is Galahad... who also is unnaturally long-lived.

In short, I don't know if it was what Waltke&Co. intended, but I definitely did not build that part-something-else bit of YF from nothing.

Also, Darci's line about "I'd give real money if he'd shut up" is a reference to Star Trek VI.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 188/?

sakon76 — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 13:58:53 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 11th April, 2025

"All right, you lot," Deya growled, trying to impress the trolls who wouldn't give a slorr's knuckle if she bit it in front of them. They still didn't think she was worth following. But Vendel, apparently, had made some deal with the wizards, and he, at least, was backing her. "This won't be easy. But when has anything worth doing ever been easy?"

That got her cross chat as the trolls talked to one another. She heard some agreement, but more spite and apathy.

Her gaze caught on one of the gnomes skittering about, and an idea sparked. They were tiny but fierce, like humans. They fought. All the time.

"Wow," she drawled, "didn't know you lot were less brave than a bunch of gnomes."

That caught attention, and earned her a wave of incensed ire, that the assembled trolls should be compared to vermin and found lesser.

She hid a smile. Use whatever works, she told herself. It doesn't matter why they fight, just that they do. Because from what she understood, this was it. The big moment in history, the big push. It would either end up with trolls free to go about their lives... or they'd all be dead or fodder in Gunmar's army.

She'd been in Gunmar's army, and she didn't want to go back. That kind of low-boiling hatred was just exhausting to be around, let alone maintain.

Plus, there was Jim and his whole band of time travelers to consider. Deya liked them, and as she understood it, if this battle didn't go right, they'd all be erased from existence.

So she had to convince the trolls.

"Little troll speak good," a voice she'd hoped to never hear again said from behind her.

Deya whirled, kicking instinctively.

General Aaarrrgghh of the Gumm-Gumm army fell where he stood, curled around his gronk-nuts.

Deya unsheathed Daylight.

"Wait wait wait wait!" A blue figure waving all four arms rushed in front of the fallen Gumm-Gumm. "I believe there has been a mistake!"

Deya could not believe her ears. "A mistake?" she demanded.

"Yes!" The blue troll drew himself up, imposing himself between her and the Gumm-Gumm. "It is my belief that the time spent in our prison has shown him the error of his ways."

Aaarrrgghh nodded weakly.

Vendel, off to the side, sighed deeply, his hand wiping down his face. "Really, Blinkous?" he asked. "Are you willing to risk the lives of all our brethren on this... wild speculation of yours?"

The blue troll glanced at the fallen one, hesitated, then turned back to Dwoza's leader. "I am?" he asked, sounding unsure. Then, "I am," he stated much more confidently.

"And your own life?" asked Deya.

He met her gaze resolutely, with all six eyes. "I must believe," said Blinkous, "that even the darkest and cruelest of souls may be civilized, given the opportunity. And what better chance than this to demonstrate that this is the truth?"

"Brother..." objected another troll, the green one who looked like Blinkous.

Blinkous held up a hand. "I have made my choice, Dictatious. Let my fate be twined to the brute's."

For his part, the brute in question was still on the ground, staring up at Blinkous as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Vendel sighed noisily again. "So be it, Blinkous. His fate is henceforth tied to yours. Keep him under control, or you will both face the consequences."

Deya nodded, backing up the Elder's decision. "Got my eyes on you," she said, flicking two fingers between her eyes and the pair of them.

Turning back to Dwoza's trolls, she found them whispering among themselves, staring at her.

"She... felled a Gumm-Gumm," the shrill one, Bagdwella, said incredulously. "In one move." Others shifted, murmuring in agreement.

After that, getting the trolls to follow Deya to the bridge was a lot easier.

"Perfect! More meat for my troops," Gunmar snarled. "Berserkers, tenderize them!"

Eli couldn't believe his eyes as Gumm-Gumms rolled up into balls and hurled themselves across the narrow band of sunlight that separated the two armies. He yelped, jumping out of the way of the one hurtling closest to him - though it missed him by at least six feet. Most of the knights dodged out of the way - though a few weren't so lucky, and were crushed by the armor that surrounded them.

"WHAT," said Toby, incensed. Then, "The Spheroid Brotherhood will hear of this!" he bellowed, which made absolutely no sense to Eli, who was staring wide-eyed at one of the Camelot knights kneeling by one of the crushed ones, holding his hand until it fell.

Because he was dead, Eli realized. Dead like the Gumm-Gumms were dead, because they'd hurled themselves into the sunlight without even questioning Gunmar's command.

This was battle, and it was real, and it wasn't like on TV or the last time, when he'd been high and secure and acting as a sniper--

Eli felt cold.

He was weak, he wasn't strong enough, he wasn't trained enough.

He was going to die here.

"What's up, Pepperjack?" asked Steve.

Eli looked up at his... maybe-friend? through watering eyes.

Steve actually looked concerned.

"They're going to kill us," said Eli because he couldn't think of any other words to say. And he'd been scared before, but Steve had only ever shoved him in a locker or messed with his stuff. Never anything dangerous. Never anything that could kill either of them. "We're gonna die here, Steve."

Steve blinked, looking surprised. "We're the good guys, Pepperjack."

"We're cannon fodder," Eli said bluntly, pissed off for maybe the first time ever. Steve's brain had to be ninety percent hair. Couldn't he see how badly they were outclassed? Okay, maybe they'd gotten a little bit of training, but neither of them was Jim. Or Toby. Or even Douxie.

Elijah Leslie Pepperjack had no magic armor, no magic weapon, no weight of destiny commanding that he live.

This was a real battle, and he was going to die here today, nine hundred years and who knew how many miles from home.

Steve looked taken aback for a moment. Then he rallied himself. "Pepperjack," he said, one hand on Eli's shoulder, "we're knights. And the first job of a knight is to defend the people. So, yeah," he said with a nod. "Maybe we die here. Maybe this is how our story ends. But it's our job to make that fight worthwhile. And to take out as many of those buttsnacks," indicating the Gumm-Gumm army with a jerk of his head, "as possible."

The last light of the dying sun caught in Steve's golden hair, turning it into a halo.

For a minute, Steve looked cool.

Eli felt his heart beat fast, because it was his destiny to be surrounded by incredible, beautiful people who were utterly out of his league and not interested in him anyway.

But Steve didn't seem to notice Eli's rising blush as he held out his hand. "Creep?" he offered.

"Slayerz," Eli breathlessly finished, interlocking his fingers with Steve's.

"All right," Steve said, turning back to face the Gumm-Gumms, the daylight dividing the armies down to a mere sliver. "Here's the plan: you watch my back and I watch yours. Got it, Pepperjack?"

"Got it," said Eli, unsheathing his sword a heartbeat behind Steve doing the same.

He was going to survive this, Eli vowed to himself. He was going to survive this and earn some coolness points himself and eventually figure out how to stop getting crushes on everyone around him!

The shouts and insults of the Gumm-Gumms piled on top of one another and largely drowned out those few ripostes yelled back by the knights of Camelot. Part of Camelot's training, Douxie remembered, was to save your breath for battle. For himself, he'd seldom found that effective. Smart-assing his way through any situation helped him keep a lid on his nerves.

"Each one a similar face," he murmured to himself now, scanning the ranks of the Gumm-Gumms. Except for Bular and Gunmar, they were mostly indistinguishable from one another. He wondered how many of them were homunculi. And how many of them were under the Decimaar Blade's thrall. "Or faceless, depending on which side of the line of demarcation you stand."

Merlin gave him an odd look. Douxie ignored it, feeling for the magic that welled in his bones. They'd fight the Gumm-Gumms, the pair of them, then Morgana would show up, making herself their primary target, luring them away from the battle.

He had faith in his friends, in Jim's small but growing kingdom. They'd protect each other and hopefully no one would die--

...no one but Arthur, who was maybe his...

Douxie shook the intrusive thought away. It didn't matter! What he needed to do was find a way to trap and bind Morgana, and, hopefully with Claire's help, stick her in the Trollmarket heartstone for the next millennium.

Morgana knew they were from the future. Would she remember that, in the heat of battle? Would she overestimate him? Because Douxie had been spending too much magic recently. Stupid, stupid-- He wasn't scraped desperately thin, but neither was he flush with power. Even finally having his staff back could only ameliorate that so much, especially when Morgana had her own staff and was presumably tumefied with the magic of gods.

Rather like a bloated tick. He would make that joke to Archie, who would appreciate it, but this Archie hadn't been through this battle before, didn't know what was about to happen.

Arthur, on his promontory in the sun, started making a speech to his followers. Douxie only half listened to it; he'd heard it before, and nothing had changed. Though, he did note with a glimmer of amusement, Arthur was significantly better at making speeches than Jim was.

Well, Arthur had had longer to practice the art. And modern American schools didn't exactly prioritize rhetoric. Which was a pity.

But also, interestingly, Douxie could feel the threads of Arthur's divine kingship trying to pull on him, to align all of Camelot's forces in this direction, pitting them against the Gumm-Gumms, with the king as their head and lead. And those threads... slipped aside, unable to grasp Douxie.

Well, I'm not Arthur's anymore. If I ever was.

Looking at his fellow time travelers, he noticed that they too all seemed less impressed by Arthur's words than his rapt subjects. Douxie hid a smile, turning back to look at the king rallying his forces.

We're not yours; we're Jim's. And for now we fight by your side, but you're not our king, Arthur.

He wondered if already belonging to another king was why Arthur's call of loyalty felt weaker than Jim's powers of calling forth loyalty. But it clearly worked on Camelot's knights well enough; they gave a rousing cheer, joined by the Arcadia crew. The mutual roar echoed off the rocks, momentarily drowning out even the Gumm-Gumms.

And then sun slipped away into twilight, and the two armies met with a crash.

"You know," Claire grunted, knocking one Gumm-Gumm after another to the ground, "Douxie still owes us brunch-- from last time!"

"Look out!" Jim took out a Gumm-Gumm right behind her. He flipped his sword in his hand. "I miss Daylight," he said wistfully. "Or Exc--" He bit off the word. "What's that about brunch?"

Claire grinned up at her boyfriend. "He skipped town with Nari before we could do brunch," she reminded him.

"Oh yeah."

A yell not far away attracted their attention. "Well," said Jim as they both stared, "at least Varvatos is having the time of his life."

"Yeah." Claire absently summoned a shadow portal, swallowing up a Gumm-Gumm and depositing him a hundred feet into the sky. He turned to stone as he hit the ground.

Then....

Hot-cold prickles raced up Claire's spine. The hairs at the back of her neck raised.

Turning, she saw gold spreading across the sky.

Not dawn. Not sunrise.

"Morgana," she growled.

"Oh my god," Mary said, not too far away. "That much gold is tacky."

"Mary!" Darci snapped. "Focus! Battle?"

"Ugh, fine," said Mary, accompanied by a flash of light that made a Gumm-Gumm screech. "I mean, it's not like it's easy, working with electricity and this many people in armor around."

"Claire," said Jim lowly as Morgana streaked across the sky and Merlin and Douxie started running, following her.

She hesitated, torn. On one hand, she should follow Douxie and Merlin. On the other hand, she wanted to keep Morgana's attention off her until the moment she was needed.

A great roar like thunder or a jet taking off filled the vale. Even Arthur and Gunmar paused, looking up for the source.

From behind Camelot's lines, an army of trolls poured into the valley, wielding clubs and hammers and, it was clear, whatever weapons they could scrounge or improvise. Deya, clad in silvery Daylight armor, led the charge.

"I think we're good here," Jim said, turning to Claire. "Go."

She grinned at him, a brief bright thing, and opened a shadow portal. "Stay safe," Claire instructed, and was gone.

Morgana led them, of course, to the old battleground, strewn with remnants of a destroyed building, weapons, skeletons. Douxie swallowed and tried not to think of the village he'd just left, equally devastated. "I feel dark magic," he murmured, waiting.

"It means she's close," said Merlin.

Had she chosen to lead them to this spot because it was unnerving? Or-- No, Douxie thought, remembering the first time. There's blood and curses soaked into this ground. They resonated with Morgana's dark magic, or perhaps with the fact that she had been brought back to life by Nari and even now the shadows of death clung to her. He eyed the skeletons, remembering reanimated revenants reaching for him; cold, damp roots twisted into fingers grabbing his shoulder and wrists--

--stabbing Merlin. And it was that injury which had ultimately led to Merlin's nine hundred year nap.

I can't interfere, Douxie thought wildly. I can't, I have to let history take its course--

Morgana's ghostly taunts and laughter did not help with his nerves or his spiraling panic.

"Douxie," said Archie, bumping against his chest. "Douxie, focus."

His arms curled instinctively around his familiar even as cold, damp roots seized him. Douxie's breath came fast. Light tunneled to a pinpoint, and suddenly nothing mattered more than getting free--

"Get your hands off me!" he screeched, his eyes glowing blue. A percussive blast of magic shredded the grasping roots even as Douxie panted for breath.

Merlin stared, which kept the elder wizard frozen long enough for a root to shiv him from behind, piercing all the way through his chest and out through the armor at the front.

Merlin made a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a grasp, and stumbled, falling free of the roots as Morgana's mocking laughter soared high and she vanished.

"Master!" gasped Douxie, rushing to Merlin, who had a hand pressed against the injury. Black smoke poured out of the wound, as it had the first time. "This is bad," Douxie reported, looking up at his teacher.

Merlin gave a small nod.

I couldn't even try to change this, Douxie realized, because I panicked.

As if Archie could read his thoughts, the dragon said softly, "Douxie...."

Douxie swallowed down hysteria and self-blame, helping support Merlin as the injured mage leaned on his staff. "Hisirdoux," he said, "if I should fall this day...." In his hand was a very familiar scroll of parchment.

Douxie took it and unrolled it, knowing already what he would see.

"'Heart of Avalon'?" Archie asked, reading over his shoulder.

"And building a tomb," Douxie murmured. There were sections of the scroll where there should be additional notes, plans for the next nine centuries. As before, they were blank. He'd have to fill them himself, give his younger self the instructions that would guide him for nearly a millennium. He lowered the scroll. "You knew this might happen."

"Foreseeing the future," said Merlin, "means preparing for the worst of it."

Douxie swallowed and nodded, feeling for perhaps the first time a small speck of gratitude that he didn't have that particular gift. I froze and I panicked, knowing what was coming. What would I do if my entire life was like that?

...Probably be more of a disaster than I already am. If that's possible.

He didn't know why he'd panicked, except that he did. In a long life full of bad days, today was right up there at the top.

Well, maybe next to the top.

Douxie swallowed down the taste of bile and all the other things that wanted to well up in him. He could have another breakdown after the battle was over, after Morgana was sealed away, after they'd all gotten back to the future...

...After we defeat the Order, after we kick Morando's butt....

The list seemed endless. Douxie wanted to cry.

He took a deep breath and instead offered Merlin his arm. But the wizard refused to take it, limping on with the aid of his staff, tracking the sorceress.

Claire slipped between places, in and out of the shadows so fast that she was sure she wouldn't have noticed herself, so hopefully Morgana wouldn't have noticed her either.

...Hopefully.

She found Douxie following Merlin, looking concerned. Which, she couldn't blame him. Merlin was far and away not her favorite person, but he looked like he'd been hurt bad, clutching at his chest and breathing heavily as he labored on, too stubborn to quit.

Maybe that was a master wizard trait, Claire mused, because Douxie was just like that, and so was Morgana.

Or maybe....

Her lips thinned as she thought about Jim, and how he never gave up either.

"Douxie!"

Douxie blinked and looked surprised, before glancing around, hastily putting his finger to his lips and making "hide" motions at her.

Claire's words died on her lips.

Merlin stopped, turning to see what had caught his former apprentice's attention. When he saw her, Claire could swear she saw something like the stages of grief flash across his face: shock, anger, pleading with gods, sorrow, and resignation. "Stay hidden," the elder wizard instructed finally, "lest Morgana destroy you."

Claire fumed. She wasn't helpless! She was here to help them.

Douxie grimaced at Merlin's words as the older wizard turned back to his course and stumped on. But he clearly read her intent on her face, because he nodded. He, at least, didn't think she was a victim in the making. "Wait for the opportune moment," he advised.

Claire nodded too, then, thinking about it, flashed Douxie a grin and a double thumbs up, like the one he'd given her so long ago at the Battle of the Bands.

Douxie blinked, then a corresponding grin lit up his own face, some amount of tension melting off his shoulders as he gave a silent laugh. Giving her the double thumbs up back, he jogged off to follow Merlin.

Claire, meanwhile, looked around and found a crevice to hide in between two boulders. Her armor was dark enough that it blended with the shadows, and she had a decent view of the open area where Morgana would attack. Glancing up at the huge illuminated skull wedged overhead between the rocks of the ravine, Claire shivered. Was that real, or just someone's idea of weird interior decorating? Had there been monsters that big?

...Gatto was that big, she realized. Though she wasn't sure trolls had skulls per se. Maybe it was from a titan or something. The mythological ones, not the ones that the Order had used to almost end the planet.

Something else to research when I get home.

"This is not going to go well," Archie murmured even as Merlin demanded that Morgana reveal herself.

"Indeed, it's not," Douxie murmured in response. "Even more than you know." He resisted the urge to look back, to make sure Claire was well concealed. Doing so would only give her away, and while she was good, beyond good even, Morgana was swollen to bursting with the power the Arcane Order had granted her.

Douxie was not going to lose his friend, his student, to Morgana's madness.

Morgana and Merlin sparred verbally like two dying stars circling one another, tearing each other apart. Douxie was put in mind of the yin-yang taijitu.

He swallowed, wishing it had not come to this. If only Arthur hadn't murdered his sister (...murdered his son...). If only Guinevere hadn't died. If only Uther hadn't ordered Arthur be sent away, unacknowledged, unloved. If only Uther had kept his cock in his pants in the first place and never swived another man's wife. If only the Pendragon line wasn't cursed, everything could have been all right.

A curse....

Ice water suddenly ran down Douxie's spine. His eyes opened wide, breath coming short.

Merlin, he suddenly remembered, when he'd been Myrrdin Wylt, had wished a pox on his and Jim's houses.

No, Douxie thought desperately. He wasn't using magic then. I'd have heard it, I'd have felt it, if that had been a true curse. Douxie knew curses. They were part of his line of work; he'd even laid them on the rare occasion when they were truly warranted. Merlin hadn't cursed him or Jim then.

...But there was nothing saying Myrrdin hadn't cursed him again, later. Like when he'd drunk himself insensible....

Oh.

Douxie didn't know for sure. But this? The entire Pendragon dynasty? Felt like a curse.

Oh no.

This is all my fault, Douxie suddenly realized. Misery felt like a punch to the gut. He swallowed. If Merlin cursed me, and in doing so cursed the whole world....

Morgana laughed, and made her shadow-self, before departing to go kill her brother.

Kill Arthur.

Kill Douxie's....

"Douxie, look out!" Archie shoved him out of the way of golden vengeance. Douxie hit the ground hard, the shock of stone jolting him out of his circling thoughts.

It took a moment, but in that moment his thoughts cleared.

Whether or not Arthur was his blood father didn't matter. Whether Douxie had inherited Mordred's destiny genetically or by magical overflow from a murdered infant, the result was the same.

This isn't my fault. Douxie pushed himself up. I didn't do this.

Arms trembling, Douxie stood, eyes instinctively tracking that poisonous golden light as it darted around the darkness, Merlin taking potshots that missed.

Even if a drunkard with magic cursed me, and through me the Pendragon line, that's not my fault.

It's not my fault, he realized, but it's my responsibility.

I'm the one who has to fix this.

His mouth narrowed into a line.

Merlin said that the burden of a wizard is to make the hard choices that mortals cannot.

Douxie's staff appeared in his hand.

Taliesin said that I am a miracle. That I am a bardic mage, and my power is to share my soul through my art.

He drew on its power, sighting Morgana's shadow.

I say, I am Hisirdoux Casperan, and whether or not I am Mordred, I am going to use his power--my power--to fix this.

Eyes narrowed, Douxie fired.

Author's Note: My apologies for missing a few weeks of posting. Watching my country waltz its way downward into a fascist dictatorship is not really great for my mental health or creativity. A few elements in this chapter are due to varve! Most notably, Deya Rule 3'ing Aaarrrgghh, and Myrrdin's inadvertent cursing of "Taliesin" coming home to roost in the whole Pendragon lineage. Douxie's line about "Each one a similar face, or faceless, depending on which side of the line of demarcation you stand" is from Sound and Fury's Renfaire performance of Testaclese and ye Sack of Rome. And his advice to Claire about waiting for the opportune moment is from the first Pirates of the Caribbean film.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 187/?

sakon76 — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 15:36:25 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 14th March, 2025

The spell sputtered and failed, its material components used up. Apparently not even whatever Jim was doing with the Time Stone could exceed the physical limitations that constrained certain types of magic. Claire could go back to the castle, get more salt; there was still plenty of the rosemary bush left...

But.

Peeking further at the past would get no more answers than they'd already achieved.

Douxie swallowed. His throat hurt and he wasn't sure he could, or should, speak.

He knew his mother's voice now. Her appearance and her smile. And his father...

...if Casper was his father.

"Hey." Jim's hand landed on his shoulder. "You okay?"

Douxie blinked back the tears that were threatening to escape. His younger self wasn't doing as much, was crying into Archie's fur. But Douxie was older, was a master wizard now. Needed to be the master of his own self. He nodded (a lie), and managed to swallow down the blockage in his throat. "Still no answers," he managed.

Jim nodded solemnly, accepting what he was given. Whether or not he believed Douxie was probably another matter. His blue eyes glanced to where Douxie's parents had been, then back to Douxie. "Even if King Arthur is your... biological," he said, "he's not your dad. That's your dad." He nodded toward the vanished memories.

The words shouldn't hurt as much as they did. And it wasn't Jim hurting him, but the whole stupid, messed-up situation. But right now Douxie felt like a raw nerve. "I know." His Da was in his name, after all. Casperan, for Casper's son.

Much as he counted Merlin as another father, Merlin had never given him a name, unless it was Mordred. Which might not even be his name. Though, Douxie considered, there was "ignoramus" and the like - Merlin had called him those lots of times.

"Question!" Krel butted in. "What did your father mean about 'your gods and mine'?"

Douxie shook his head. He had no idea which gods his parents had followed.

(Douxie didn't follow any gods. He'd met enough of them to know that while they held power beyond his ken or reach, they were not ineffable and always had their own plans and designs. Even Nari, one of the few he trusted.)

Archie snorted. "Douxie's father was not from around here. Couldn't you hear his accent? He was probably a soldier or traveler of some sort, who settled down with a local girl and brought his own beliefs with him. It's not an uncommon story."

"Short of a DNA test," Douxie managed, "I don't think I can know the truth." Whether he was Arthur's son, or Casper's. Whether he was Mordred, or Mordred's heir.

"What's... what's a DNA test?" his younger self asked.

Claire's lips pursed. "Modern magic," she said. "Something that, nine hundred years from now, can tell you who your blood relatives are."

Douxie's younger self had an expression of wonder.

Claire turned to Douxie. "I mean, we could always ask Morgana--"

He shook his head. "And have to tell her why? No."

Claire nodded, accepting his reasoning. She, better than anyone, understood Morgana's volatility and rage. "What about Nimue? She called you the heir to Camelot's magic."

"Which could mean any number of things," argued Krel. He ticked possibilities off on his fingers. "Heir to Merlin, heir to Arthur, heir to this Mordred...."

"Either way, she was right that this was not a favor, nor a kindness," said Douxie. He felt like he was starting to recover from the blow. Time putting distance between himself and the shock of things that were, or might be. The ground was steadier under his feet, anyway. Like with Jim. We won't let him fall. And my friends won't let me fall.

If he was a king killer, better it be Arthur, regardless of their possible relationship, than Jim.

Douxie never, ever wanted to revisit the moment that the creature in the Deep had set before him.

But then, he'd never wanted to come back to his home village either, and yet here he was.

If Jim needs to be stopped, I will stop him, Douxie knew in his bones. And if Arthur needs to buffed up just to die, in order to finally keep his promises to magical creatures, then I'll do that too. After all, wasn't that what Douxie was? A liar, a conman, and a thief, all feeding into a master wizard. Though it abraded his soul and the ethics he'd learned and tried to abide by, a master wizard was in the end someone who did what must be done.

I don't have to like it. But I do have to do it.

He swallowed that down and let it settle with all the other stones that weighted his soul.

No one man was so important that all else must be sacrificed to keep him whole. Merlin had lost sight of that in Arthur, his surrogate son who replaced the one he'd lost centuries ago. Jim, for all that he was a shining light and Douxie's little brother and best hope, wasn't the center of the universe either.

And neither was Douxie. Mordred or not.

He sighed and forced his shoulders to lower. Breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, he pictured all his troubles as dandelion seeds floating off in the wind. It didn't work as well as he would have liked; it never did. But it worked well enough for him to take the next step. Which was....

"We're due at Killahead," he murmured.

Jim's brow furrowed. "Are you sure you're up to it?"

He wasn't, but it was good of Jim to ask. "Have to be, don't I?" asked Douxie with a shrug. "Merlin's not getting through his part of things without help, no matter what he wants anyone to think."

"Douxie..." his brother said with a sigh.

"I'll be fine, Jim."

"Trust him." Krel added his weight to Douxie's side. "Because if the two of you start arguing about whether or not he is ready, we will all be stuck here until the battle is over."

Jim looked betrayed.

Claire laughed and linked her arm through her boyfriend's. "Krel's got a point. And if Douxie says he's up to this, you should trust him."

Jim huffed. "Fine," he said. "But if you start spiraling," he added, pointing at Douxie, "I'm taking you out of there. No questions."

"I'd like to see you try," Douxie jibed with no heat behind it.

"So... we're going to Killahead Bridge, then?" asked Douxie's younger self, Archie still held in his arms. "To join Master Merlin, and the king, and all the knights?" He looked like he had mixed feelings about it: partly thrilled to be allowed to fight by Merlin's side, but also partly terrified of the battle. And of the knights, if Jim remembered right what Douxie had told him about his treatment at their hands.

(Jim didn't think he'd ever forget that. Camelot's knights were a lot worse than Steve ever had been.)

"Ahh... no," said Douxie. Archie's ears perked up and he looked at his older familiar. "Not you."

Younger Douxie wilted, while also looking a tiny bit relieved. "But I--"

"Believe me," said Douxie, stepping forward and laying a gentle hand on his younger self's shoulder, "no one understands how you feel more than I do. But I made a promise." His smile was soft, charming. It won a shaky returned smile from his younger self even as Douxie quietly said "Interminus Nocti Sluumberso."

Archie leapt out from between them as the younger Douxie crumpled into the older's arms. "Douxie, what on Earth--" his familiar demanded.

"I promised Merlin," Douxie said, hoisting his younger self up into a princess carry. He nodded at the sleeping form. "And I'm not ready for that battle yet."

"Repeated sleep spells--" Archie began.

"Can cause memory loss permanently, yeah, I know." Douxie nodded. "I don't remember any of this, Arch. I especially don't remember that I might or might not be Mordred. That was news," he muttered.

Archie was silent for a moment. "You are asking me to keep a secret from you. From my own familiar. For nine centuries!"

Douxie was similarly silent for a moment. "I am," he said, and even Jim could hear the unspoken I'm sorry in his tone. "But I know you can do it, Arch."

Archie visibly fumed, then slumped in acquiescence. "Fine," he said. "But when you get back to your own time, you owe me an entire roasted salmon."

Douxie smiled. "I'll see what I can do."

"Entire," Archie emphasized, still looking put out.

"Yes, yes," Douxie dismissed. "I heard you the first time. Claire," he said, turning to her. "Can I trouble you for a quick portal back to the tower? Someone," he said, with a nod at his sleeping burden, "needs to get tucked up into his own bed before we head off toward Killahead."

"And I'm coming with you," said Archie. "I don't trust you not to get yourself killed in battle. Right now, you need me more than he does."

"Of course you're coming," Douxie said, even as Claire opened the portal and he walked into it, familiar at his side. "I wouldn't dare go into battle without my dragon protector--"

"You know," said Krel as the two of them vanished on the far side of the portal, "I think Douxie would be a lot worse off if he did not have Archie to banter with."

"I think you're right," said Jim. "I also think he's choosing to ignore whether or not he's Mordred."

Krel nodded, as did Claire. "If it keeps him going until we're home and safe, I'll take it," she said.

Krel snorted. "Home will not be safe either," he pointed out.

Jim sighed, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulder. Atlas, and his brother's keeper, apparently. "You're right. And Doux knows that. So he'll just keep himself moving until we've dealt with the Order and Morando, and then he'll fall apart."

"Like you don't do the exact same thing," Claire said, a smile on her face.

Caught out, Jim had to give a guilty chuckle.

Krel nodded in sage agreement. "The two of you are brothers in more than blood."

His younger self was safely in bed, dreaming, with the wool blanket pulled over him and a safety spell set on the door, barring entrance save to a very limited set of individuals. Douxie flexed his hands once, twice, trying to think of anything he'd forgotten. Anything he might need from Camelot for this battle.

Himself. His familiar. His staff.

Everything else was down to his family and friends.

"You're stalling," said Archie.

"I'm assessing," Douxie sniped back. He ran fingers over his bracer, sighed, and stepped forward. "And I'm stalling," he admitted, walking with Archie back through the portal Claire had left open.

"Why?" asked Archie as they emerged into the ruins of Douxie's origin.

"Because battle is messy and people die who don't need to," Douxie said. It was a fundamental truth of war. It never changed, no matter the century or the weaponry. Dead eyes from every battle he'd ever been in accused him. Why did you survive, and not us? they always asked. How did you cheat Death?

Magic, Douxie wanted to answer. Magic and... maybe destiny, now.

Because regardless of what Merlin had forseen, he was fairly sure his master hadn't considered an interim of nine hundred years before Mordred's destiny was fulfilled.

If I'd died... died permanently, Douxie amended to himself, any time in those nine hundred years, would Mordred's destiny have been averted after all?

A pox on the Pendragons and their cursed bloodline!

Arthur's revenant was still alive in the modern time, tool of the Arcane Order. Would killing him again end the curse on that house? Because even if I am of that blood, I certainly am not going to reproduce. And Morgana never was a Pendragon. So that will be the end of Uther's lot.

"Ready?" asked Jim.

Douxie nodded. "As I'll ever be." A wave of his hand righted the airship. He was able to swing up into it easily, as were Jim and Claire. Archie cheated by flying up to the deck. And Krel dropped his transduction and clambered up the vessel's side like a spider minus a couple legs. In a puff of blue light, Douxie's staff appeared in his hands. He hooked it into the ship's controls, drawing it smoothly back until the airship rose above the trees and into the sunlight. "Off to Killahead, then, my liege?"

Jim nodded, and Douxie set course.

The little valley where Killahead Bridge sat was unremarkable, and the bridge itself seemingly superfluous. "Why do they even have a bridge?" Krel muttered, peering over the prow of Douxie's (stolen) airship as their destination came in sight.

Archie hopped up next to him. "Spring floods, I believe," he said, adjusting his glasses as he looked down. "It's dry now because it's late summer."

"Ahh." Krel knew just enough about Earth's seasons to extrapolate.

As the vessel glided down, the sides of this conflict, literally, came into view. The shadowed cliffs on one side of the vale were lined with Gumm-Gumms. On the other side, on a rise in the sunlight, stood King Arthur. Ranged behind the king were the knights of Camelot, with Toby, Steve and Eli stood between Varvatos and Sir Lancelot. Near them, Krel spotted his sister. Zadra, noting their ship's approach, nudged Aja out of her conversation with Mary and Darci. Aja grinned broadly and waved to Krel. He waved back, still surveying the situation for any tactical advantage he could pick out.

Where are the trolls? Krel wondered. Then he had to roll his eyes at his own stupidity. Of course there were no trolls on their side. The sunlight would kill them. They were doubtless hanging back, out of sight, for the very same reason Gunmar and his troops were confined to the dark.

But the sun was going down.

Aja waved to Krel, watching as the airship circled once above the valley then came down to a smooth landing to the rear of Camelot's arrayed forces. Then she let the smile drop from her face and turned back to Mary. "Go talk to him," Aja hissed.

"No!" Mary hissed back. "I can't!"

"You will regret it if you do not," shot back Aja. "Do you want the Lancelot to die without even saying goodbye?"

Mary looked pained. "I don't want him to die at all. But that's not up to me."

"Mare--" Darci tried to break in, but she was ignored as the Social Media Queen and the Queen-in-Waiting glared at one another.

"If my Palchuk," Aja said precisely, thinking of how things might have gone, "had died at the end of the world, and I had never told him my feelings, or even said goodbye, I would regret it all the rest of my days."

Mary squirmed. "It's not the end of the world, Aj'."

Aja nodded toward Sir Lancelot. "It is the end of his."

"If I may." Lieutenant Zadra's hand descended onto Mary's shoulder. Mary looked up at her. "I have lost many comrades in battles," she said. "The things you regret most, the rest of your life, will not be the things you did. They will be the things you did not do." Her expression was taut but her eyes held unexpected sorrow. "Leave nothing unsaid," she advised.

"I...." Mary looked around, then down at the ground. Her shoulders moved up and down as she took a few breaths. When she looked up again, her expression was resolute. "Excuse me," she said, and grabbed Zadra's hand. "You too," she told Zadra, and pulled the surprised Lieutenant along behind her.

Aja was so proud of her friend she thought she might glow with it.

"Well, there's something," mused Darci. "First she stops waffling on Tight Jeans Hank, now she's actually going to talk seriously to a guy she likes."

"Mary is growing up," Aja agreed.

"One king cannot stand against an army, Arthur!" Gunmar bellowed as knights and squires moved aside and Douxie set the airship down at the back of Camelot's lines.

"Two kings now," Krel commented to no one in particular. "And a queen, and some princes," he added.

Douxie glared at him.

Krel grinned, unrepentant, as the wizard leapt down from the vessel.

"Took your time getting here, didn't you?" asked Merlin, walking up to his former apprentice. "You almost missed the battle."

The older wizard must have been expecting a smart remark, because he looked taken aback when he didn't get one. "We had some things to take care of," Douxie quietly replied.

"Heeey, Jimbo!" The one Trollhunter ran to the other, Toby wrapping enthusiastic armored arms around Jim. "Glad you're here."

"Me too, Tobes." Jim smiled at his best friend. "Deya...?" he asked, surveying the area.

"She'll be here," Toby promised with a nod.

"Good." Jim turned to look at Arthur on his promontory, where Camelot's king was resisting rising to Gunmar's bait. Suddenly Jim's eyes widened. "Sh-- shoot," he said.

"What's wrong?" asked Claire.

"I can't use my sword," Jim replied.

Several sets of eyes widened, including Krel's, as they worked out the math of why. "Kleb," said Krel.

"You could use Eclipse?" Toby offered.

Jim shook his head. "You need a weapon. I guess I could use my glaives?"

"That won't give you nearly enough reach against the Gumm-Gumms," Douxie said.

"I know." Jim's eyes suddenly narrowed. "Armor," he said pointedly to the wizard.

Douxie sighed and rolled his eyes but obligingly tapped at his vambrace. A wash of blue magic later, his clothing had turned black.

"Wait," said Toby. "I thought your armor looked like your hoodie and jeans...?"

"It's magical," Douxie said impatiently. "It looks like whatever I'm wearing."

"Why," broke Merlin into the conversation, "can you not use your own sword?"

"Uhh...." Various members of their group looked around at one another, trying to find a way to explain.

Jim stood tall, blue eyes meeting blue eyes as his fingers tapped beneath his amulet.

Merlin leaned forward to read the inscription.

The wizard's eyes flew wide. "You...?!" he demanded, looking at Jim's face in shock.

"Nine hundred years," Jim said pointedly. "Someone has to."

Merlin's expression went through a complicated dance as he straightened. Then, "Galahad!" he called.

"Yes, old friend." The knight nudged his steed closer.

"I need to borrow your sword."

Sir Galahad surveyed the enemies on the other side of the vale through bushy eyebrows. "All right," he said, drawing his sword and handing it over. "But make it quick."

Merlin sniffed, but ran his hand over the blade, his magic glowing green. The weapon wavered - and then doubled. "Your sword," he said, handing one back to the knight.

Galahad nodded and somehow managed to make his horse walk in reverse, returning to his place in the knights' lines. Krel, who had never had much expertise with animals, did not understand how he managed that.

"A sword," Merlin said, offering it to Jim, the blade spread across both his palms. To Krel's surprise, and apparently to the others' too, the ancient wizard gave a slight bow as he gave the weapon away.

"Thank you," said Jim gravely, accepting the blade.

"Um. Sir Lancelot?"

The knight turned from where he was conversing with his fellows. A perfect smile graced his face. "Lady Mary! Lady Zadra! What may I do for you?"

Mary tried to ignore the thought that his tone had been just a shade deeper on Zadra's name.

"I, um." She floundered. "I wanted you to have this!" she said in a rush, pulling out something and handing it to him with both hands.

He took her phone. "What manner of token is this?" he asked, examining it.

Mary flushed deep. "Sorry!" she squeaked. "Not that." She patted at the various pouches hanging from her dress's belt until she found the one she'd meant to open. She pulled out a white handkerchief, embroidered around the edges with what looked like silver circuitry. She didn't know where it had come from. Probably Douxie had made it when he'd made her outfit. "I've heard-- I mean, knights sometimes wear a lady's token, right?"

"Ah." His expression deepened into one of grave sadness. "We do indeed, my lady," Lancelot said gently, handing her phone back to her. "Mine is kept here." He touched his breastplate, over his heart. "The token of her majesty, Queen Guinevere."

"Oh." Crestfallen was the word for how Mary felt to be so thoroughly rejected, even obliquely.

"Does the token of one lady prevent you from taking that of another?" asked Zadra.

"A true knight must be loyal unto death," replied Lancelot.

Zadra's eyes were keen, piercing. "Yet your queen is already dead, and you still will not take a token from another. Not even one who offers it in all innocence."

Mary flushed again. Zadra was arguing for her! She hadn't thought the Akiridion woman even liked her.

Lancelot, for once, seemed caught on the back foot. "Guinevere is... was my queen," he said, looking away. "I cannot betray her, even in death."

Mary bit her lip. "She gave it to you because she loved you?"

Lancelot's head whipped back. His gaze pierced her. "Never once did my unworthy hand raise to her presence."

Mary rolled her eyes. "Obviously. She was married. But what I'm saying is, can you only be loved by one person?" Her eyes narrowed. "Because it sure seems like she was loved by more than one." She gestured at where King Arthur stood on a knoll, facing the Gumm-Gumm army. "I may only be sixteen," Mary argued, "but I know there's never enough love to go around, and that you should take it when it's given to you."

"Especially," said Zadra quietly, "when it may be your last chance."

Realization spread slow as dawn across Lancelot's face. He half-turned to where Douxie and Merlin stood. "Have the wizards forseen this?" His voice almost didn't shake.

"They have," Zadra said, which seemed like a lie until Mary thought about it. Douxie and Claire were wizards, after all, and they knew what was going to happen, even if Merlin did not.

There was something like relief mixed with fear and sorrow on Lancelot's face. "And the king?" he asked softly.

Arthur would fall here, Mary knew, but she also knew he was going to be resurrected and they were going to have to face him after they returned to the twenty-first century. "Arthur endures," she said, which was also not a lie, but not the whole truth either.

Lancelot swallowed. His eyes had a sheen of unshed tears. "Then let me go bravely to my fate, and my queen's side," he said, "where I shall wait with her for our king." He summoned a shaky smile and held out his hand. "And let me do it wearing the favors of two brave, kind ladies."

Mary placed her handkerchief in his hand and nudged Zadra. The Akiridion rummaged in her pouches as well and turned up one of her own. Mary caught a glimpse of double-bladed scythes embroidered in Akiridion blue.

Lancelot tied one to each arm and bowed to them. "My ladies," he said. "I must prepare for the battle." And he turned away from them.

Mary watched him go, her heart in her throat. "Sir Lancelot!"

He turned back to her.

Quick as a hummingbird, she darted in and up, using a fallen tree to get the height to press a fast kiss to his cheek. His facial hair buzzed under her lips. "Thank you," Mary told him, not knowing what else to say, and darted away, going back to her friends. Her team.

Behind her, Lancelot said gently, "God keep you, my ladies."

And that was how she said goodbye.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 186/?

sakon76 — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:17:02 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 21st February, 2025

Douxie stopped short. Claire looked at him, concerned. "Teach?"

Douxie's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, his eyes staring at nothing. His hands trembled.

"Douxie?" asked Krel, reaching for their wizard.

Douxie didn't seem to hear him-- hear either of them. He took a quick, shuddering breath in, then ran.

Claire looked at Krel, who looked as confused as she was, then set to running after him.

It wasn't easy; Douxie was fast, and had longer legs than Claire. And he clearly knew where he was going, while she didn't. She and Krel had to dodge confused servants and courtiers left in his wake. "Douxie, wait!"

He didn't hear her, didn't slow, didn't stop.

"I think he is making for Merlin's tower," grunted Krel.

"Why?" wondered Claire.

Inside the tower, the two of them climbed, Krel taking the lead. Halfway up, they ran into Douxie's younger self, who looked at them with big eyes.

"Have you seen a wizard go through here?" Krel asked him.

Douxie the younger nodded. "I... uh, I went up the stairs just now," he said, pointing upward. "He didn't even seem to notice me. Is something wrong?"

"Probably," said Claire. "But we don't know what."

"He seemed quite upset," added Archie.

"Maybe he went to Merlin?" Krel guessed.

"We'll come with you," said Archie.

But in Merlin's workshop, there was only Merlin himself, sorting through levitating objects with flicks of his hand. "Not now, Hisirdoux," he groused irritably, not even turning to look at them. "There remains limited time before I must depart from Camelot, and I have much to do."

"Sorry, Master," said younger Douxie, bowing them out of the room.

"Where else would Douxie go?" asked Krel.

"Well, I mean, there's always the roof?" suggested younger Douxie. A sudden groaning noise from above made his head snap up.

"Was that...?" asked Archie on his shoulder, also looking up.

"The airship?" asked Douxie.

Claire and Krel exchanged a look. "What does he want with an airship?" Krel wondered.

By the time they reached the roof, the vessel was a small white speck in the distance, receding rapidly.

"We are going after him," said Krel. "I do not know what is wrong, but I do know that him dealing with it alone is probably not a good idea."

Claire nodded. She raised her hand; a small purple and black portal flared to life in front of her, then sputtered out again. Her mouth tightened to a line. "I can anchor to him, but he's moving too fast," she complained. "I can't get a lock."

"Then we will simply have to wait until he gets to wherever he is going, and go to him then," said Krel.

"Can I... can I come with?" asked Douxie's younger self. He looked desperately hopeful.

"He's my familiar," Archie agreed. "We will be coming with you."

Claire's grimace turned to a small smile. "Of course you will," she agreed. She glanced again at the fleeing white spot. "Wherever he's going."

It took almost an hour before Lady Claire's sporadic attempts at making a shadow portal to his older self bore fruit. Hisirdoux spent a good portion of that time peering over the edge of the tower at the grounds below. Camelot's knights were assembling, checking their armor, their weapons, their steeds in the broad morning daylight. He knew there was going to be some kind of big battle happening in the Wild Woods, but....

"Master Merlin said the knights are to fight on the same side as the trolls," Hisirdoux murmured.

Archie pushed his glasses higher up his nose. "I must admit, I'm dubious as to how well that will work."

"Me too," agreed Hisirdoux. "But if it does work, I guess it will be strategic or something?"

Archie sniffed. "Strategic or not, I have difficulty believing it will lead to any sort of long-lasting alliance."

Hisirdoux nodded, conceding the point. He doubted anything could lead to a lasting peace between Camelot and the creatures of magic. "Look, there's Master Merlin!" Hisirdoux said excitedly, spotting his master striding across the grounds, his sable armor a counterpoint to the king's burnished white. Like the knights, Merlin had a horse waiting for him - the big black gelding called Brutus.

"Brutus seems to be in a good mood today," said Archie. Merlin stroked the horse's nose while conferring with the king. His staff's emerald caught the sunlight.

Hisirdoux snorted. "Brutus just doesn't like you because you never bribe him with carrots the way I do."

Archie's eyes narrowed. "Bribery is cheating."

"It's only cheating if it doesn't work," retorted Hisirdoux.

"Oh, there is my sister!" said Prince Krel, joining them and pointing down at the crowd. Princess Aja's white-blonde hair gleamed like the knights' armor as she mounted a steed of her own.

"The princess is going with them?" Hisirdoux asked, aghast. He knew she could fight, of course - the whole castle knew it by now - but she was a princess! Noblewomen didn't fight in battles unless they had no choice!

"I would like to see anyone try to stop her," said the prince. "Besides, we will be meeting her there. Assuming we can find our Douxie," he said, glancing over his shoulder at Lady Claire.

She attempted another shadow portal, then gave up the attempt with what sounded like a curse in a language Hisirdoux didn't recognize, coming over to the battlements to watch the departure with them.

Though he surely couldn't hear them from his distance, Merlin looked up, his eyes meeting Hisirdoux's. Hisiridoux's fingers tightened on the merlon. But his master merely nodded, then slung his staff across his back, where it clung to his armor, holstered by magic, and used the mounting block to get astride Brutus.

The king mounted his own pure white steed, and with a great fanfare and clattering of horseshoes on the cobbles, the king and the wizard and all the knights of Camelot, attended by their squires, went out the gate and across the drawbridge, leaving the castle itself almost empty. Princess Aja rode in the middle of the pack, her own ladies riding pillion behind knights - save for her terrifying bodyguard, who was also afforded her own horse. Hisirdoux watched as the group streamed into the field, banners snapping high, and then disappeared into the Wild Wood, until there was no trace of them whatsoever.

Hisirdoux's shoulders lowered.

He hated the idea of the battle and bloodshed that was surely to come, but at least he had the castle all to himself and Archie. No one he needed to run from, or hide from!

After the knights were gone, Claire raised her hands again. "If I can't lock on to Douxie this time, I'm portaling us to Dwoza," she told Krel.

"Might as well do something useful," he agreed.

He was not expecting it when her violet-tinged eyes flew wide. "He's stopped moving!" Claire reported. "Go, go!"

Krel hustled through her portal before Douxie could start again.

Though, he found when he reached the other side, it did not look like the wizard was going to.

The airship was landed on the ground between two trees, listing more than slightly to one side. And their resident wizard was sat on a stone, staring at... well, Krel did not know what he was staring at. But Douxie's fingernails were digging into the sides of his head.

"Where is this place?" Claire asked as the portal closed behind her.

Archie was looking around, his eyes wide. "Oh no."

"Where are we?" asked Douxie's younger self, also looking around. "This looks like it used to be a village."

"Douxie?" Claire knelt down in front of him. "Are you okay?"

Douxie wobbled a little from side to side. His mouth made shapes but not words. He focused on Claire, then beyond her.

"This looks like... it reminds me of..." Douxie's younger self was wandering around. He touched the half-height wall of what must have been a house at one point, then turned. "Wait. No--"

Archie flew to him. His arms closed around the dragon automatically, as though he wasn't even aware of it.

Krel could hear Archie's purring from twenty feet away. "Don't look," the dragon said. "Don't look, Douxie."

The smallest monetary denomination dropped for Claire first. "Is this... your village?"

Younger Douxie started hyperventilating, babbling denials. Older Douxie... well, it took a moment, but he nodded.

"What happened here?" Krel inspected one of the buildings. Accounting for the degradation caused by this planet's atmospheric phenomena, the structure looked like it had been torn apart by claws.

"Gumm-Gumms," said Claire, standing. Her hand rested on their Douxie's shoulder, never breaking contact. "But why come here?"

A hitched sob was all the answer their Douxie gave.

It was obvious Douxie would not respond to either of them. And Archie was busy keeping the younger version of his familiar occupied. They needed a higher authority. Which was one of only two individuals. And given that Merlin was not known for his emotional intelligence--

"Claire," said Krel. "We need Jim."

"So," said Deya, looking at Jim. "About that sword of yours...."

He grimaced. He really should have expected that she'd recognize Excalibur. "I pulled it out of a rock, where we're from?"

"Ho, you have a sword, Sir Jim?" asked Lancelot.

"Yeah! He's only got like--mmph!" Steve's mouth was covered by Eli.

"It's a magic sword," Eli said, "but we know you guys aren't really keen on magic, right?"

Deya was looking back and forth at all of them until the penny seemed to drop for her that while she knew they were from the future, Lancelot did not. And that Jim wielding Arthur's sword had all kinds of implications that the foremost knight of Camelot might not take well.

"Out of a rock, huh?" she asked. "Huh. Guess that explains a few things."

Jim incrementally relaxed. "Yeah...."

Jim wasn't expecting the portal that suddenly opened in front of them. But given that his girlfriend was a shadowmancer, he probably should have. Steve certainly wasn't expecting it; he yelped and flailed, and suddenly there was a Steve-and-Eli heap on the ground as Claire stepped through her shadow portal.

"Hail, fair lady!" said Lancelot, recovering faster than the rest of them.

"Claire?" asked Jim, confused. "I thought we were meeting you at Killahead."

"Change of plans," she told him. "Something's wrong with Douxie."

What? "Douxie?" asked Jim.

"Douxie?" Toby, Steve, and Eli all echoed.

"Come on." Claire latched onto Jim's arm, pulling.

Well, it wasn't like he wasn't going to go with her. Especially not if Douxie had gotten himself into trouble. "Uh. See you there?" he told the others.

"Indeed." Lancelot saluted.

Deya nodded. "See you there, Jim."

Claire's portal swallowed Jim whole. On the other side....

On the other side, his brother, both versions of him, were clearly in distress. Jim's eyes widened. There was only one Archie, and he was dealing with the Douxie from now, so Jim dropped to one knee before the Douxie who was from home. "Douxie?" he asked, reaching to cover his brother's hands with his own blue ones.

He got no response. Jim frowned, and shifted back to human. He took a deep breath, and reached for radiance. For the voice of command of a divine king. "Douxie, look at me."

It worked. Like he was slogging through a deep mud, Douxie's head raised slowly until his eyes met Jim's. Jim managed to pull his brother's hands away from his head. There were bleeding red crescents where each fingernail had embedded itself in the skin. Jim ignored them, focusing only on his brother. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Mordred." It was barely the breath of a whisper. Jim doubted anyone else heard it.

Jim's face wrinkled in confusion. "Uh. You said he was dead? That Merlin told Arthur about him, and there was a purge--"

A harsh, ugly laugh cut him off. "That's what I thought."

Jim didn't understand. "You mean he survived? But we didn't run into him last time."

Douxie stood, shoving away from Jim. "Mordred, who was born on Beltane," Douxie said, so tense he vibrated as he looked down at Jim. "Mordred, who was prophecied to cause King Arthur's death."

Douxie's birthday was on Beltane too, Jim thought.

Claire sucked in a breath. "And you just talked Arthur into going to Killahead."

"Wait, does that mean you are this Mordred?" asked Krel.

"What?" asked Jim.

"What?" asked Douxie's younger self, in tandem with Archie. Younger Douxie paled and took a few stumbling steps back, falling on his butt. Archie pressed himself into the younger wizard.

Jim felt stupid, and wanted to confirm exactly what he thought was being implied. "Wait, Douxie are you saying you're...?"

"I don't know!" A burst of blue magic swept away from Douxie, buffeting trees and grass and rocks. Claire and Krel braced against it while Jim just stared up at his brother.

"I don't know," Douxie repeated more quietly, sinking back down onto his rock. His hands found his head again; Jim could see unshed tears in his eyes. But Douxie didn't look at him, only at the ground. "I thought... maybe my uncles could tell me if my mam ever worked at the castle, or... if they knew I was a bastard or not. But they're not here. They're dead. All of them."

"Shit," was the only think Jim could think to say, mind reeling. Douxie might be Arthur's...

"Bad enough to be magic, here and now," murmured Claire. "But to be King Arthur's son...."

Krel tapped fingers against his lips, humming. "You do not look a thing like him," he offered. "Your hair, your eyes, your body type. All are different from his. Is it possible you are not related?"

"Would that be possible?" asked Jim. He hesitated, then put his hand on Douxie's shoulder. It felt tense like iron under his fingers. He didn't let go. "Maybe Arthur's men did kill Mordred, and his destiny just... spilled over onto you, or something?"

"That would be better," Douxie murmured, still not meeting Jim's gaze.

"I don't want to be Mordred," his younger self hiccuped. "Mordred's bad...."

"You're not helping," Claire told him, earning herself a brief glare from Archie. She walked over, knelt down beside Douxie. Put her hand on his other shoulder. "Would it really be so bad if you were?" she asked. "I mean, Morgana would be your aunt, and she's... not all bad. When she's not literally crazy."

Douxie paled. "Given that she goes mad because of Arthur's death... what do you think she'd do if I was the one who caused it?" His fingers tightened on his scalp, drawing fresh blood. "What would Merlin do, if he ever found out?" he whispered hoarsely.

Caught out, Claire grimaced.

Jim huffed out through his nose. "Bellroc is going to be the one who kills Arthur," he reminded them. "Whether or not he's your sperm donor doesn't change that, Douxie. You're not the one who kills him."

"Neither was Merlin," murmured Douxie. "Yet Morgana blamed him nonetheless."

Jim's gaze caught on a bush beyond Douxie. An idea sparked. "Claire, can you go back to Camelot?" he asked her.

"Camelot? Why?"

Jim stood and walked over to the bush, running armored fingers along the flowering stalk. The scent of volatile oils drifted up, smelling a bit like pine needles. "This is rosemary," he said. "We need salt."

Douxie's thoughts were like a whirlpool. Water circling a drain. He might be Arthur's son. Or he might not be. Maybe Krel was right. But he had the same birthday, and he had too damned much power. Being a child of destiny would explain that.

Or maybe Mordred had been one of the two boys in his village killed by the knights, and that child's cut-short destiny had just splashed over onto the nearest person with a grain of magical talent.

Douxie choked down a sob. Either he was a bastard's bastard, or he was the heir to a murdered infant's legacy, and he didn't know which, couldn't know which, and he didn't even know if knowing would be worse than not knowing.

And oh gods, whether or not he was a patricide, he was a king killer, and Merlin would do worse than just seal him away if he ever found out that Douxie was or might be Mordred--

Cool brown hands peeled his fingers away from his scalp. "Enough of that," said Krel, peering down at him. "I know that you heal faster than most humans, but that is not a good excuse to damage yourself."

Douxie stared up at him. He wanted to lash out, he wanted to curl up and die, he wanted to run away and hide, never to be seen again. All these things warred within him, with no resolution.

A glimmer of a memory broke through, and he couldn't help a giggle.

It earned him strange looks from Jim and Krel. "What's up...?" his king and brother asked, eyebrows raised.

"Remember that time," Douxie said, "when Toby thought I was Merlin's penultimate student?"

"Uhh..." Jim and Krel exchanged a look. "Yeah?"

"That's Morgana. And if I'm Arthur's bastard, that means Arthur is the penultimate Pendragon...." Douxie couldn't stop another giggle.

Krel blinked. "Have you hit your head...?"

"It's a play on words," Archie snapped from within the other Douxie's arms, then promptly looked mortified.

"We know who your dad is," Jim told him.

If possible, the dragon looked even more mortified, retreating further into his familiar's arms.

"Wait, they know your dad?" younger Douxie asked Archie.

"I don't wish to talk about him," the dragon grumbled.

"You know." Krel sat down cross-legged next to Jim. "If your father is a king, that makes you a prince. And though it is sometimes uncomfortable, a prince is not necessarily a bad thing to be."

Krel thought.... Agh. Douxie covered his face with his hands. "That's not how it works here and now," he said. "Arthur wasn't a prince until his father acknowledged him. And Arthur ever acknowledging someone like me?" Douxie could think of unlikelier things to happen. Though not many.

"Well, I mean, you are a king's brother too," Jim pointed out. Douxie lowered his hands incredulously. "I mean, if Toby can be a duke because he's my best friend, I can definitely say you're a prince."

Jim was grinning.

Douxie resisted the urge to kick his king.

"Got it!" Claire stepped out of a portal, brandishing a small sack. "And also!" From behind her back she pulled out a hand mirror.

Douxie stared. "Is that Morgana's?"

Claire shrugged. "Well, it's not like she's using it."

Douxie... could not argue that.

"Come on." Jim got to his feet, then grabbed Douxie's hand and leveraged him up too. "Time viewing spell."

"It's not got sound, Jim," Douxie pointed out. "There's no answers to be found from the dead."

"That's not what archaeologists and Strickler say," chirped Claire while Jim went to tear a sizable branch off the rosemary bush, shooing away the several bees that clung to the blossoms. "Now where do you want these?"

"And anyway," said Jim, touching fingers to his amulet, "I think there's maybe something I can do about that."

Hisirdoux watched from his huddle with Archie as Sir Jim and Lady Claire and Prince Krel aided his own elder self to set up a spell that looked a tad more complex than those Hisirdoux was used to creating - while at the same time seeming extremely simplified and streamlined compared to Master Merlin's.

And he didn't like thinking about it, really he didn't, but thinking about the fact he might be Mordred was better than looking around the ruins of the village, picturing his uncles and their wives and his cousins - he must have had more, surely, it had been almost a decade and a half - being eaten one terrible night by Gumm-Gumms.

Hisirdoux crept closer, holding an armful of dragon.

His older self noticed and shifted aside, affording him a better view. The runic circle was tidy and tight, with the rosemary, salt, and mirror laid in the middle. Hisirdoux could read most of the runes, but there had to be something deeper he was missing, because he didn't understand all of it.

"Quite a different layout from usual," Archie mused.

His elder self flashed a quick, brilliant grin. "Master Dee was a genius in his own way," he said. Then the grin faded as he looked back down at the spell. "I'm not sure I want to do this," he said in a low voice.

"Hey." Sir Jim's hand landed on his shoulder. "You can control when the spell shows, right?"

He nodded.

"I don't want to see when the village was destroyed..." Hisirdoux whispered, clutching Archie tighter.

Sir Jim shook his head. "Not what I had in mind," he said. "We want to see what your--" his finger swung back and forth between the two Hisirdouxes "--parents looked like."

"Why?" asked Hisirdoux blankly.

"Well, if you're a dead ringer for your dad," said Lady Claire, "that will rule out being Arthur's offspring, right?"

She was probably right, thought Hisirdoux. But the flip side of that was, if he didn't greatly resemble his dad, he would be left in the same untethered, hellish space of not knowing that he was now.

His younger self had echoed his sentiments exactly when he'd said he didn't want to see the destruction of their village. But his reasons weren't exactly the same as Douxie's. Because his younger self didn't know Aaarrrgghh yet, and Aaarrrgghh was currently a Gumm-Gumm. Had most likely participated in that raid. And for all of Douxie's mixed feelings about his mother's brothers and their decision to cast him out to die, he still didn't want to look at his friend and know that Aaarrrgghh had killed and eaten his kin. So Douxie kept his thought very firmly on when he wanted to see as he summoned his staff and fed power into the array, causing the salt to sublimate and the rosemary to burn. And finally having his staff back made this so easy. Douxie barely felt it as the magical white mist arose, snapped into focus, and--

He sat down hard. His throat hurt. Water filled his eyes. He brushed it away, not wanting to miss anything.

"Mam," Douxie whispered in tandem with his younger self. "Da."

Jim looked at the two Douxies, sat by one another, looking like twins. Both their eyes were fast on the mist screen, where a woman stood, hands on her hips, as a four or five year old child ran up to her, followed by a strolling man. All three had black hair.

I should be recording this on my phone for later, Jim thought. If nothing else, his mom would want to see Douxie's parents. But that fell to the wayside, because right now, he was pretty sure he could improve this spell.

Taking a breath and reaching for Time, Jim extended his hand into the mist and pushed.

With a pulse of royal blue, what had been a flat scene exploded into three-dimensional life all around them.

"What the--" Krel spun and stared.

The Douxies scrambled to their feet, looking equally shocked.

Claire stared at Jim. "Jim, when did you...?"

Jim shrugged, smiling at her. "I figured some things out."

"Mam! Mam!" Douxie's childhood self shouted, running past them to the smiling woman. "I helped Da with the chickens!"

"Did you now, my love?" She knelt down so their eyes were at the same level. Her eyes were two colors, like Douxie's, but the center ring was a darker brown than his gold.

"Uh-huh!" He held out an egg as proof. "It's warm," he reported. "It came right out of the chicken's butt! I saw it."

"They do do that," she agreed, looking up as a lanky man came strolling up behind them, swinging a basket. "Was he actually helpful, Casper?"

"Oh, a great deal," Douxie's dad agreed, tousling the boy's hair. His eyes were blue. There wasn't a great deal of facial resemblance between them, but then beyond the dark hair and pale skin, Douxie didn't really favor his mother either.

"Mam." Douxie tugged at her sleeve. His expression was concerned as she looked back to him. "Do babies come out of women's butts too?"

There was a beat of silence before both adults erupted in laughter. "Oh, no, Hisirdoux," said his mother, wiping her eyes. "They come from somewhere else. I'll tell you where when you're older."

"Oh. Okay." Mini Douxie looked thoughtful for a moment, then he narrowed his eyes at the egg in his hand. Sky blue magic surrounded it as it rose into the air, wobbled, then floated slowly over to his father's basket, where it settled down. He looked up at his father. "Did I do it right?"

His father - Casper - checked the basket. "Not a one broken," he reported.

Douxie broke out into a smile. "Can I go play for a bit?" he asked.

"Yes," said his mother, standing. "I've weaving to work on, and I don't need you underfoot for that."

Grinning now, the boy waved and ran off.

"Casper," his mother said when Douxie was out of earshot.

"He's getting better at control, Heledd," Casper said. "It's a gift. The gods - yours or mine - have blessed him."

"I know," she said as his free arm came around her and squeezed. "I just worry."

Author's Notes: Douxie's father's name is inspired by chapter 106 of varve's fanfic Take My Hand, which actually had Casper as Douxie's grandfather's name, with the "-an" meaning "little," combining to make Douxie's soubriquet of Casperan. Heledd (the "dd" is pronounced "th") is an old Welsh name associated with a collection of medieval poems, notable for being a rare example from the female point of view. His mother isn't that Heledd, but is named in her honor. As to Douxie possibly being Mordred....

Kudos to those who figured out the implications last chapter, and extra kudos to those who guessed at it a long time ago. I have been madly giggling over this for a long time; literally the first hint was dropped in chapter 58, which I posted in October of 2021.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 185/?

sakon76 — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 15:24:08 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 14th February, 2025

Time stuttered, as Jim had expected, to a halt. Deya didn't move, or Toby. They were frozen in time, while Jim stood... sat, rather, outside of it.

He took a deep breath. "Okay," he said aloud to no one but himself, "you can do this. You can do it."

He felt a little like Douxie when the wizard got stuck in one of his "I can fix this" ruts, but... well, wasn't that what he was trying to do?

Deya needed to become. And he and Toby would be leaving her here all alone, if everything went well, for the rest of her life. They wouldn't meet up with her again for another nine hundred years. She wouldn't have other trollhunters to back her up, wouldn't have a team... would just have to keep fighting the good fight all by herself, taking on Bular and all comers until one day the job killed her.

Putting it like that made Jim feel like a heel.

But home needed him too, and the last thing he wanted to do was what Gaylen had tried to do, and rouse the ire of time, or destroy the world or the universe or something.

Jim's jaw firmed. I don't have to like this, but I do have to do it. Deya is strong enough to stand on her own. She just needs to see that.

"So," he said, now addressing the amulet on his chest, and more importantly the Time Stone within it. "What we're going to do is grab the two of them also out of time, then find us some place to train, okay?"

He waited, but if he was expecting any kind of answer - a pulse of light, or magic, or anything - Jim didn't get it.

He rolled his eyes. "What we need," he said, and reached out to Toby, taking his best friend's arm in both his hands, "is a little more time."

Jim's eyes fluttered half shut as he reached for the sense he'd had before, when the unicorn had spoken to him, that all time was one, and his for the taking, if he just knew how to move it. He imagined this time-out-of-time he was in wrapping around Toby.

Jim closed his eyes, took a breath, and yanked.

"Whoa!" Toby crashed into him, knocking them both over. "What the heck, Jimbo?"

Jim stared. Then, he couldn't help it, laughed.

"Uhh." Toby pushed himself off Jim. "You okay there?"

"Just messing around with magic," Jim told him, grinning.

"Okay...." Toby looked around, then stopped, his gaze on Deya's immobile form. "Um, Jim?"

"It's fine." Jim stood, dusted himself off. "I pulled us out of time."

Toby's face twisted through a series of expressions. His hands did a similarly complicated dance around one another. "...Why?" he finally asked.

"Deya needs to become," Jim told him. "But we don't have time. Thus...." He gestured at the still world around them. "Making time."

He could see Toby processing that. After a moment, Toby nodded. "Okay, that makes sense. Why me, though? I mean, you could just do this on your own."

"I'm not gonna do it without you," Jim retorted. "Besides, who better to teach her how to be a Trollhunter?"

"Uh, you?" Toby pointed out. "You're kind of the best one ever."

Jim felt heat rising into his cheeks. "You're not so bad either," he pointed out. "Besides, you're better with people than I am. Duke Toby." Because Jim was a king now, had made himself into one to protect his people, but sometimes that put him in a different place than other people.

Trollmarket would follow him because he was right and he asked. But they would follow Toby because Toby they understood.

And Deya, despite having spent most of her life in Camelot's dungeon, was a troll, with all those instincts that Toby got on a more visceral level than Jim. Which was somehow ironic, given that Jim was the one of them who literally was half troll. Though there's always that great-great-grandpa of Toby's....

"Hmm." Toby mulled that over, then shrugged. "Whatever. Your majesty. How are you gonna take her out of time?"

"Watch." Jim walked over to Deya and crouched down, closed his eyes, reaching out again with his hands and whatever weird time magic he was now able to wield, doing the same thing he'd done somehow with Toby.

He ended up with several hundred pounds of living stone on top of him. "Hey, watch it!" Deya snapped, punching him in the shoulder. Then her gaze sharpened and she froze, looking around them. "Something's wrong. It's too quiet. Too still."

"Yeah," said Toby, helping lever her up and off of Jim. "Jimbo pulled us out of time."

"What? Why?" And after a pause, Deya added, "How?"

"Magic," Jim replied, getting back to his feet. "And... the battle is tonight, and you're not ready."

"Yeah, no crap, Cadfael," Deya snapped back. She plucked up the amulet from where it lay on the stone. "And this shiny clock isn't going to fix that."

"No," said Jim, smiling. "We are." He reached out again with his sense of time and space. The world spun, and he knew where he wanted to be. It wasn't here, and it wasn't now - it didn't exist yet. But there would be a time out of time when he could access it, when it was quiet and unused.

Jim put a hand on Toby's shoulder, and on Deya's, and pulled one more time, another tiny bit of Gaylen's Core shivering into nothingness, its energy used up to fuel the magic.

Dwoza's heartstone was much smaller than the one under Arcadia, but it was still bigger than Claire's house. A home, instead of a skyscraper. And it was... pink. As pink as Trollmarket's was orange.

"You know," said Krel, considering the glowing crystal, "I feel like I should make a comment on its similarity to Zoe's hair."

Douxie winced. "Please don't. Somehow she'll hear you from across time and smack me for it."

"She wouldn't really, would she?" asked Claire.

His eyes met hers solemnly. "Zoe," said Douxie, "shares quite a few characteristics with Blinky's training for Trollhunters. Particularly rules number two and three."

Claire blinked. Then winced. Always finish the fight. And if all else fails, kick them in the gronk-nuts.

"Exactly," said Douxie, with feeling. "So, how do you want to go about this?" he asked Krel as Claire found a convenient ledge and hopped up, sitting cross-legged to watch.

"You are the senior wizard here," said Krel.

"Yeah, but you're the one that's been reading the appropriate volume of Gems and Geodes and has developed the theory," said Douxie, his staff appearing in his hand. It fuzzed into a cloud of glimmering blue smoke for a moment, then reformed into his guitar. He fingered a few chords, made a face, and set to tuning the instrument.

"Well, the theory is, this will be not quite the same as fixing a broken heartstone," Krel agreed. "According to Dictatious' book, heartstones derive their energy from the magma layer of this planet."

"That makes sense," said Claire. There was so much heat and energy down there. But heartstones would have to have pretty long roots to reach that deep. Or maybe the ones that grew really big were on top of fissures?

She suddenly wondered if there were any heartstones growing on the ocean floor, on the rifts there. Were there oceanic trolls? Or, given that trolls drowned, was something else magical using that energy?

Wait, Douxie said there were mermaids--

Krel nodded. "So in order to increase the energy output of this heartstone, we need to increase the size of its root."

"Biggify the taproot, got it," muttered Douxie. He strummed again and seemed satisfied, because he looked up. "How do we go about this?"

Krel hesitated. "I need to show you a diagram," he said.

Douxie sighed and touched his vambrace, pulling a whiteboard out of the ether. It floated over to Krel; Douxie tossed the accompanying dry erase marker. Krel caught it without a bobble, which impressed Claire, who'd seen the Akiridion prince have more than a few klutz moments.

"Okay," said Krel, uncapping the marker. "The problem is this--"

The geomantic technobabble lost Claire within three sentences. Some of it, things like "power matrices" and "stable configuration" made sense to her, but then they were lost under a flood of other words. Douxie occasionally had to ask questions too, but they were more to do with Krel's segues into "similar to a Rinoxian klurgenox--"... which was, honestly, fair.

She sighed, drawing her knees up to her chin. "Guess I really can't do geomancy," she said. Which was... she hated having limitations. Hated running up against them and not being able to bust through. But like trolls faced with sunlight, or (she brightened at the thought) Douxie and Merlin's complete inability to do shadow magic, there it was.

"Right." Douxie nodded, drawing things to a close. "You start with finding the pitch, then, and I'll start when you're ready."

Douxie's whiteboard and marker disappeared in a wisp of blue magic as Krel walked over to the closest vertical facet of the heartstone and placed all four hands against it. After a second, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the crystal too. He hummed a single note. Then a displeased look crossed his face. He shifted the tone up. And went higher again.

"Roots are deep," said Douxie softly. "Try going low."

Without responding, Krel obeyed, his hum dropping lower and lower until he hit something in a bass register that sure sounded like resonance to Claire, because the crystal's glow intensified as the heartstone sang the sound back to Krel. The crystalline harmonic raised the hairs on the back of Claire's neck. Vibrated deep in her bones. Inside her shoes, her toes curled.

Douxie's face lit up with a smirk. His fingers shifted on the neck of the guitar, and he started to play.

Toby's jaw dropped. "Jim--"

"It's okay!" Jim held his hands up before himself. "It's not in use right now, no one's here, and we're outside of time anyway. No one's going to catch us."

"That's not what I'm... ugh, I'm not exactly upset... um, perturbed about!" Toby retorted, flailing for words. "Did you just pull us halfway across the world and a couple centuries forward in time?"

"Um." Jim rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe?"

"Jim!"

"What... is this place?" Deya asked, turning to look around. At all the statues (~~corpses~~) lined high on the wall, looking down at them.

"...This is the Hero's Forge," Jim said. He shared a look with Toby. "It's where Trollhunters are trained. Or, where Trollhunters will be trained, someday."

She snorted. "And you brought me here to try to convince me to be part of your little fighting club? No thanks." She tossed the amulet away again. It clattered to the ground at Jim's feet.

Toby picked it up. "This picked you for a reason," he said, presenting it to her. "More than anyone else in Dwoza, you're brave. And just. And you'll fight to defend everything that's good - and take out everything that's evil."

"Shows what you know, short stuff."

Toby ignored the jibe at his height. Other than around the Quagawumps, he was always going to be the shortest person in the room. He'd long since made his peace with that fact. "I think you're just scared of leading people," he said. Her eyes widened. "It's not easy! People like to argue, like to fight with someone telling them what they should be doing. But sometimes you have to do what's hard."

"And it's not just trolls, either," Jim agreed. A sour look crossed his face as he no doubt remembered almost their entire academic careers. "Humans have plenty of argumentative disagreement too."

Toby nodded. "But someone," he said, "once told me that you lead from here." His fist thumped against his own chest. Right where Vendel had tapped, weeks ago.

"From the amulet." Deya looked dubious.

"No." Toby smiled up at her. "From the heart. You gotta know who you are. You gotta believe in yourself."

Her fingers turned her amulet over and over. "I don't know...."

"Try it," Jim urged. "Read the incantation."

Her purple eyes flicked to him, then back to the amulet. The inscription on the front flickered, then settled into Trollish. "I can't read that," she complained. The amulet flickered again, into something Toby couldn't read but Deya apparently could. A smirk curved her lips. "For the glory of Merlin," she said, "Daylight is mine to command... whoa!"

The magic seized her, carrying her up into the air. Armor pieces appeared and fit themselves to her as Deya looked on warily. Even, annoyingly, the helmet Jim and Toby had both had to work so hard to unlock. Or... maybe Deya's was a different one? Because she sure as heck didn't have any of the Triumbric Stones yet, Toby thought.

Finally, the magic set her down on the ground. "Uhh..." Deya said, checking herself out. "Okay, it's shiny."

"Wait for it," Toby advised.

"Wait for wh--" Her eyes flew wide and she bit off a yelp as Daylight appeared in her hand. "Whoa. That's a rush."

"Yeah," Jim agreed. Excalibur appeared in his hand. "Tobes, you want to do the honors?" he asked, nodding toward the Forge's entrance.

Toby grinned and trotted toward the control panel.

"Uh, what are we doing?" asked Deya.

"Training," said Jim and Toby as one, as Toby pressed the "on" button.

Jim's thoughts were a morass of things he didn't like and things he needed to do as his blade swung down at Deya. She yelped and barely managed to bring Daylight up to block him. "Hey, watch it!"

"Watch yourself," he called back. "No, seriously, watch out."

She yelped again, dodging and rolling as a jet of flame fired at her back. Getting to her feet, she panted, staring wide-eyed and barely managing to nip out of the way as a pendulum blade came swinging toward her. "What the heck-- Who designed this thing?! A total maniac?"

"Yeah, that just about describes him," said Toby, leaping onto the arena floor just before it started to tilt. "I think it's supposed to reinforce rule number one of Trollhunting: always be afraid."

Jim bowed himself out of the way as Toby came into play, his own version of Daylight, or, rather, Eclipse, swinging at Deya in the form of a warhammer.

She doesn't even know how to read her own language, Jim realized in a way he hadn't before, as Deya dodged. Because he had been able to read the words on Deya's amulet... but she couldn't.

Someone in Camelot taught her to read twelfth century Welsh. But not Trollish.

In History class, Strickler had railed against slavery and residential schools. Jim had sudden insight as to why the changeling had felt so strongly about those things.

After all, hadn't changelings, like Deya, like African slaves, like Native Americans, been torn away from their homes and families and had their birth culture wiped away from them in the name of "civilization"? Or, as Strickler put it more aptly, "subjugation."

How could you be confident in yourself, if you didn't even know who you were?

One more reason to hate Arthur, Jim thought grimly, and rejoined the fray, swinging from behind Deya, forcing her to keep an eye on multiple opponents at the same time as the very ground shifted underneath her.

He and Toby had all the time in the world to train Deya, maybe... but looking at the reduced volume of Gaylen's Shard, Jim also had the sudden keen sense that time was also running out.

Merlin followed the magic, finding his wayward apprentice in the vicinity of Dwoza's heartstone.

Vendel's eyes widened. "By Grabthar's Hammer..." he murmured.

Merlin, too, felt the urge to swear, but restrained himself. For one thing, the music Hisirdoux was producing from the crimson lute that was also clearly his staff was absolutely dreadful. For another, it would not do to show emotional reactions, no matter how impressive the sorcery being performed.

The heartstone was... not growing, precisely, though he had no doubt it would. But it was pulsing with light and energy, the latter being emitted not only as magic, but also as warmth. A breeze moved around the room, ruffling Vendel's fur and Hisirdoux's hair, or at least those parts of it that weren't plastered to his skull with sweat, as the new master wizard played on, eyes closed.

"All right," panted the blue figure that leaned forward against the great crystal. "That's... I think that is enough." He stepped backward, glowing brightly blue, a heat shimmer rising from his form. He shook four hands, as if trying to cool them. The face and form were unfamiliar, but the voice wasn't, and neither was his magic.

Prince Krel. Merlin had many questions. He prudently sat on all of them.

For all that Hisirdoux's music was dire, however, he was clearly skilled at it, his fingers moving almost faster than sight could follow, as he didn't just break off in the middle of his playing, but somehow managed to end the tune in a fashion that was reminiscent of neatly finishing the invocation of a spell. Breathing hard, he opened his eyes, staring blankly at nothing for a moment before finally lowering his instrument.

"Well?" Prince Krel asked Vendel. "Is this acceptable?"

Dwoza's elder looked gobsmacked, but he shook his head and managed to recover a bit of his dignity. "It is. And our thanks to you."

A hundred more questions popped up for Merlin - chief among them, how had the pair done what they had done - but they were shuffled to the side as Hisirdoux's young shadow sorceress hopped off the ledge where she had been sitting, legs crossed like a hoyden, and smiled brightly. "Great! We should head back to Camelot for now, though. I think Douxie at least needs to eat something."

Hisirdoux mumbled something nonsensical about being fine with a nummy nugget or three.

"Ugh, same," said Prince Krel, wiping his forehead.

"Come on, Teach," the maiden said, looping her arm through Hisirdoux's. "I'll drop you off in Camelot then circle back around and figure out where Jim's gone." She side-glanced at Vendel and prudently did not mention the female Troll the future Trollhunter had gone in pursuit of. Vendel, for his part, was approaching the illuminated heartstone, wonder writ large on his expression, seemingly having forgot the rest of them.

Merlin would have to trust his word, that as the price had been paid, Dwoza's inhabitants would show up at the battle at Killahead Bridge.

"I go with you," said Merlin to the children. "The king will need protection on his way to the battle."

It must have been hours, or maybe even days, by the time Deya was confident with her blade and armor and giving Jim and Toby a run for their money. But oddly enough, none of them seemed to have felt it. No hunger, no thirst, no need to use a toilet.

Being out of time was weird, Jim concluded, looking down at the crystal jammed into his amulet.

"Uh, is that good?" asked Toby.

Jim shrugged. The crystal was now half the size it had been when they'd arrived in the twelfth century. It had been shedding little motes of white light, like sparks rising from a campfire, the entire time the three of them had been training out of time. "I mean, I wasn't planning to use it for anything. Might as well use it for this."

"Yeah, but, like, I don't wanna get stuck here with no exit," said Toby. He gave a full-body shiver. "You think that's what it's like for the Ghost Council?"

Jim splayed his hands, shrugging again. "No idea."

"Ghost Council?" asked Deya, coming up to them, her sword slung over one shoulder, her stance confident and cocky.

"You'll find out," Jim told her.

Deya's mouth pursed. "I wish you guys didn't have to go."

"We got stuff to take care of in our own time," Toby told her. His mouth flattened to a line. "And that's not gonna be fun."

"We'll meet again," Jim promised Deya. They would, after all. It would just be after her death, when she was part of the Ghost Council. "You ready to go back?"

She considered the question, giving it the weight and attention it deserved. "I'm still not happy about leading that bunch of rockheads. But, you know?" She hefted Daylight, looking up along the length of the magical blade. "I think I can handle it."

Jim smiled. Toby grinned and gave her a thumbs up.

"Okay," said Jim, closing his eyes and focusing. "Back to Dwoza. And the battle of Killahead." He held his hands out; Toby took one, Deya the other.

Reaching out for when and where he wanted them to be, Jim grabbed on to his magic - and pulled.

Heading back from the kitchens, replete with the bounty he'd charmed out of the cooks, Douxie paused. Then stopped entirely, turning on his heel.

"What is it?" Claire asked.

Douxie shushed her, and Krel too, with an absent hand wave as he prowled closer to the door to the throne room. He'd seen--

Well, as he'd thought, he'd seen Arthur. Down on his knees between his throne and the recessed Round Table, facing the latter. The king's hands were on his knees, his sword and crown cast away to the side as he looked down at the stone.

Oh, Douxie thought, recognition washing over him in a wave. I have to do this again. The last time Arthur had been out on the cliff where Morgana had challenged him and he'd slain her. But this time that act had happened in this very room, so of course the king was going to come to a realization of his own faults here.

"What is going on?" asked Krel.

"Stay here," said Douxie quietly, and walked forward on soft feet. Arthur didn't look up, probably didn't even notice him. Douxie tried to remember what he'd said the first time. "Reflecting,--" My king got stuck in his throat, because Arthur wasn't his king, had long since renounced all right to that title. Jim was Douxie's king. "--your majesty?" Douxie asked instead, scooping up the crown. It was heavy, as he'd remembered, all gold and jewels

"I was convinced magic had taken everything from me," Arthur said, never looking at him. "But it was my own doing. I tried to protect my people, at the expense of so many others." His lips tightened. His fingers brushed over the stones. They were clean now, but Douxie guessed Arthur was seeing the blood that had splashed across them. Blood he had spilled. "Morgana was right," said Arthur quietly. "She wasn't evil. I was."

Douxie grimaced and knelt beside the king. "It's true you've done... questionable things," he said, thinking of... well, his whole life. But most specifically the first nineteen years. All magic to be stamped out, by order of this king. Only dumbest luck, and the smallest dragon, had spared Douxie from the fate of so many others. "But the fight's not over yet," Douxie forced himself to continue. He needed Arthur to go to Killahead. To fight there, like a king, not like this sad sack of a human. Or else history might still be screwed. "There's still time to make things right for those you've wronged," he persuaded, letting the barest hint of pain creep into his voice. He might have acted with Shakespeare, but the centuries since Will had taught Douxie the power of subtlety appropriately applied. "Help me save them." A sop, to appeal to Arthur's self-worth. To let him see himself as a hero.

Arthur's blue eyes looked to him. The king seemed to see him, for the first time ever. Not as a mere serf, not as Merlin's errand boy. But as a living, breathing human being, important in his own right. And the only one comforting the king in his hour of despair. "Who are you, boy?"

The first time around, when Arthur asked him that, Douxie had still been wrestling with his own self-worth. With the idea of being important, of mattering.

Of having his own legacy.

No longer.

He wasn't Merlin. And Douxie had lucked out and found something better than legacy. He'd found a king who believed that no man was an island. That they were stronger together.

That they were all Trollhunters.

Douxie didn't need to be important anymore, to leave a legacy to be written down in books and passed down the centuries. He already had something that mattered more.

Douxie had a family.

"I'm nobody," he told King Arthur. "History won't remember me; stories won't be told about me." Indeed, they never had been. His name had never once featured in any version of Arthur's legacy, or Merlin's. Not even the one popularized by that prat Sir Thomas Malory. "But I won't let that stop me from fighting for what's right. But you are Arthur Pendragon." The one stories are told about. Even among the trolls you persecuted. Those that survived, anyway. You're a luck-magnet, a child of destiny. "No matter what happens today, I know for a fact that your story will be told. But it's up to you what legacy you leave behind." He held the crown out, letting Arthur choose between two destinies. "An epitaph... or a legend."

He saw that land. Saw the king take the bait, hook and all.

Arthur wanted to be remembered. Wanted to be a legend.

"But who will stand with me?" the king murmured.

"Galahad stands with his king!" Galahad's voice rang from the door to the throne room as he came clomping in. "Galahad, and all the knights of Camelot!"

The surviving knights strode in behind their elder, in a show of support for their king. Douxie glimpsed Claire and Krel half hidden behind the door, and gave them a discreet nod.

"And I," said Douxie, standing as Arthur did. Offering the king his crown.

Expression thoughtful, Arthur took back his crown. And turned to his men, picking up his sword. "Then let Camelot be remembered," he said, raising Excalibur high. The embedded emerald caught the sunlight, "as the warriors we were born."

The knights cheered.

With a small smile, glad to have done his piece again, Douxie made himself scarce. He doubted any of the knights noticed him slip away; certainly the king did not. He met up with Claire and Krel again in the hallway.

"Nice work, Teach," Claire said with a smile, elbowing him in the side.

"You claim to not be as good a leader as Jim," Krel agreed, "but that was very persuasive of you."

Douxie's smile faded as they walked away from the throne room.

Claire was more astute than Krel. "What's wrong?"

"That's the second time I've talked that man into going willingly to his death," Douxie said. He sighed. "I know it's necessary, but it doesn't feel great."

"Everyone dies eventually," said Krel, shrugging. "As you told Mary, there are some things worth dying for."

"I know," said Douxie, "and someone had to do it. But--"

His feet stopped moving. His mouth made an "Oh."

Enormity washed over him like a tidal wave of cold salt water, pulling him under until all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.

I talked Arthur into his death.

I--

I--

I.

Author's Notes: Deya's out-of-time training montage with her fellow Trollhunters exists because in canon, she shows up at Killahead, sword in hand, expert with wielding it already despite having been locked up in Camelot's dungeons since she was a child. Jim's first time handling Daylight, he got it stuck in a rock! So regardless of whether or not she's a natural at it, it very much feels to me like Deya was supposed to get a training montage with Jim in canon, but that it got cut for reasons of screen time. As before, Deya refers to the medieval murder mystery series Cadfael. Her line of "I think I can handle it" comes from the movie Spirited Away. And Vendel's remark of "By Grabthar's Hammer" is a reference to the movie Galaxy Quest.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 184/?

sakon76 — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 17:01:47 GMT

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. 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.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 183/?

sakon76 — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 15:05:55 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 17th January, 2025

Through some strange alchemy, otherwise known as both his master and his little brother fucking around with time, Douxie had lived this day three times. Possibly technically four, depending on how one counted things going differently for his younger self this time. And granted, the first go-around Douxie didn't remember, courtesy of his own repeated sleep spells. But the second he did. And this third was... well, not quite shaping up to be an exact duplicate of that second one, but certainly an echo. He was involving his own younger self a lot more than he had the first time, and Merlin was accepting that with barely more than a raised scraggy eyebrow to indicate his surprise.

This was possibly, he rather thought, going to be the best iteration of this day yet.

"Now," said Merlin, gesturing at the array of ores spread across the octagonal table on the lower level of his workroom. "Tell me which of these are best used for a master wizard's staff, and why."

Douxie had to bite back a grin, remembering how, once upon a time only a week and a bit ago, he'd given Merlin this same test prior to making the Staff of Avalon.

Not that Merlin would ever know that.

Douxie gestured his younger self closer. Looking nervous, the boy obeyed. "What's this one?" Douxie asked, touching a cool block of metal nearly the color of pewter.

"Ah, that's, that's Fae-iron," his younger self said, voice just barely not cracking in the middle of his words. "It's strong, but useless against wraiths, werewolves, and gnomes."

"It does, however, make a marvelous container for magic, being inherently resistant to it," Douxie added his knowledge to the pot. Fae-iron had, in fact, been a good part of the Chronosphere. Probably still was, in Zong-Shi's hands. Huh. We might need to reunite the two aspects of the Time Stone, once we get home. Well, that's for after we deal with the double Excaliburs. Douxie moved the ingot to one side, to what would be a "keep" pile. His eyes met Merlin's. "Excellent for a staff."

Merlin nodded. "Continue," he bid levelly.

Claire was good at shadow magic. She was, in fact, very good at shadow magic. Maybe not Morgana's equal - but then, Morgana was also a master wizard, and Claire wasn't. Claire didn't have her staff.

~~Morgana's staff.~~

Her mouth thinned as Steve fussed over the new holster on his back where Toothache rested when he didn't need the axe. Sir Lancelot, as grim-mouthed as Claire herself, checked once more his knightly... everything. Claire didn't know half the things he was checking over in his armor and weapons, and didn't need or want to. Eli, at least, was more sensibly keeping an eye on Arthur and the rest of the knights.

She was here for transport and to make sure the two blonds didn't either get themselves killed or set off a premature battle. Eli might get himself killed, but at least Claire trusted him not to cause a fracas.

"Hey, Claire-y bear!" caroled Toby. "Come on, let's turn that frown upside down!"

She turned her glare on him.

Toby recoiled.

"Wow, bad mood much?" he muttered.

Claire rolled her eyes at him and jerked her head in the direction of the dragon throne, where King Arthur was explaining yet again to his knights that they were to fight beside the trolls, not against them.

"For now," one of this knights muttered. She saw others nod.

Arthur, to give him credit, narrowed his eyes at the speaker. "We no longer have the numbers to defeat Gunmar," he said pointedly. "Our comrades are slain, our walls weakened... we must make a stand here and now to defeat that tyrant, and in order to do so, we must have allies."

The knight hunched his shoulders. Looked away.

"I do not ask you to like them," Arthur said. "I do not ask you to trust them. It may be that there is too much bad blood between us to ever heal that rift... but how will we know unless we try?"

Steve whooped, punching the air. "And together, we're going to kick some bad guy butt!" he said.

That won a faint smile from Arthur, and a nod. "Sir Lancelot and Squires Steven and Elijah go ahead of us, to help train the trolls of Dwoza, that they are ready for the battle ahead. As for us, my men, we must secure Camelot before we head to the bridge, and ensure that those we leave behind can defend themselves in our absence."

"They're still jerks," Toby muttered, barely loud enough to be heard by her and Jim. "We're so screwed, aren't we?"

Jim, human at the moment, shrugged. "We managed last time...?" he offered.

"Cheer up, young knights!" boomed Lancelot, coming up to them. "Camelot has never once fallen before the might of an opposing army, and she shall not do so now."

Claire bit back the urge to tell him that it wasn't Camelot that would fall. The castle itself would be fine, sailing in the clouds according to Merlin's plan. "Not worried about dying?" she asked instead.

"I'm worried about dying," Eli said.

"Ha!" A grin split the knight's face. "A knight does not fear death; he dances with it. And when it comes, he faces it bravely, knowing that God has claimed his soul."

Jim's hand landed on Toby's shoulder. Squeezed.

Toby swallowed. "Yeah," he said, husky. "A true knight doesn't fear death."

"He embraces it," said Jim quietly. "He makes it worth it."

Claire shot them both a worried look. Toby had died. So had Jim - arguably twice, depending on how you counted it.

Jim shook his head. Toby managed a smile.

"I still don't want to die," whimpered Steve.

"No one does," she told him. "Ready for Dwoza?"

He fist-pumped, his mood turning on a dime. "Yeah! Me and Toothache will kick those losers into line!" He patted the hilt of his axe.

"Well spoken, Squire Steven." Lancelot gave her a half-bow. "We are at your ready, my lady."

She raised an eyebrow at Jim and Toby.

Jim nodded, shifting into his half-troll form. Toby's helmet materialized over his head, hiding his human features. "Ready when you are," said Jim.

"All right. Once more unto the breach, dear friends," she quoted, and pulled open the space that led between here... and Dwoza.

Morgana stood in the light of the sun, feeling the weight of magic, of the very pivot points of time, bearing down on her. She raised her enchanted hand to the sun, which glimmered through it, showing veins of gold, as though impurities in the stone had been mended with that precious metal.

She, too, had been impure but was now mended. Golden magic pulsed in her veins, stronger than ever before, as did purpose, burning away all the insincerities of her mortal life, all the insecurities and lack of committing to her true cause.

In a way, she almost owed Arthur. She might even thank him for killing her, as her resurrection had brought her back more powerful than before, with greater clarity of thought and of purpose.

She didn't imagine he'd take that well. He had always been a weak, romantic boy from the day Merlin and Sir Ector had first brought him to Camelot.

The thought curved her lips in a smile.

Gunmar interrupted her peace and solitude.

"Arthur has sorcerers of his own," he growled, stalking forward but not daring to step out into the sunlight. "They won't be tricked by your impure changelings again."

She rather thought they would be, once she'd created more of them. The darling creatures were wholly human as humans, and wholly troll as trolls. Not even Merlin, with his vaunted magical sight, would be able to distinguish them. Morgana had made sure of that.

But creating an army of changelings would take time, and Gunmar lacked patience. He required a sop, Morgana thought. Some new magical toy to pacify him, to distract him.

She had not missed the fact that General Aaarrrgghh had not returned. Which... boded ill. Either their enemies had captured him, or killed him. Neither was ideal. And the general, for all that he had been wise to distrust her, was not the type to be delayed or defeated easily.

Morgana gestured, and took Gunmar's blade from him. Seemingly weightless, it floated to her. A bauble. A toy for a tyrant, she thought, looking deep into the blade's magical matrix and deftly working spells into it, casting them so deep into the corroded metal that they could never be removed. "With your Decimaar blade," she assured him coolly, "all shall submit to your will." She cast the sword back to him. He grabbed it from the air and swung a few times, checking, no doubt, to see that she hadn't altered its heft.

Fool. If she was going to cast any enchantment upon it which would have been injurious to Gunmar himself, he would have already fallen prey to it. Nonetheless.... "Do it," Morgana urged. Test your blade, and how it enslaves even your own people.

She would probably have to arrange for his removal at some point. Likely whenever he thought to try to use the blade on her. As if she was fool enough to allow her own spells to ensnare her! But she would wait for that day. For the day he betrayed her. For now, Morgana still needed Gunmar.

Needed him to repay Arthur's favor, and kill her brother.

Gunmar drew forth a few seed stones. Where he had gotten them from, Morgana did not know. But she was reminded strongly of the myth Merlin had once told her, of a hero named Cadmus who had sown dragon's teeth in the ground, and of the unstoppable warriors who had risen from them.

It had clearly been a tale; real dragons' teeth had no such effects. But the magic stones Gunmar now cast onto the ground, charged with the power of his weapon, acted much the same as the teeth in the story. They buried themselves and then rebirthed themselves, rising from the dirt and stone as one of the Gumm-Gumm army's seemingly endless homunculi.

"Bring the witch to me," ordered Gunmar.

The poor newborn thing obeyed, any mind or will of its own stolen away by the spell Morgana had put on Gunmar's blade. She watched, not without pity, as it lumbered forward, stepping into the deadly sunlight, turning to stone, never ceasing in its quest to obey its master's orders, until it fell, shattering entirely. It death at her feet.

It had never had a chance.

Her own creations, she was suddenly determined, would have chances. And choices. And if they fought for her cause, it would be because they believed as she did. Not because they were forced to.

But trained by a lifetime in court, she let none of that show on her face. "Go," she bade Gunmar. "Build your army. Soon, the Wild Wood will run red."

He grinned. "Our enemies will tremble."

She didn't need them to tremble. She needed them to die.

Ignoring Gunmar, Morgana turned back to face the sun.

Dwoza was much as they had left it: full of harried trolls unimpressed with Vendel having promised their strength of arms. Most of them not having strength of arms other than their natural brute strength. But Varvatos had clearly impressed them, and they were loyal enough to Vendel to devote a day to military training under Steve the unknown human and Lancelot the Camelot knight.

After all, Jim's keen half-troll ears caught Vendel promising, unless Merlin delivered the promised armor and champion, there was no true need for the Dwoza trolls to keep up their half of the bargain.

It may have been placation, but it was enough; the troll trudged off to join the others lining up to experience Steve's enthusiasm and Lancelot's more tempered tone.

"Okay!" Steve yelled. "First thing you boulder butts gotta learn is the secret handshake. Pepperjack!"

"Ready, Steve!"

"Creep! Slayerz!"

"Hey." Claire hopped up on a boulder so she was eye-to-eye with Jim. "Penny for your thoughts?"

He shook his head; the thoughts in question were all a muddle. "Just... thinking about leading."

"Oh?"

He nodded toward Vendel. "Everyone follows Vendel because he's a good leader. I mean, he's kept everyone safe for, what, four hundred years at this point?"

"And he's less cranky right now than he is at home," Toby agreed, wobbling slightly as he balanced on his own rock, somewhat higher than Claire's.

"But Arthur's people follow him too, and I'm not sure he's a good leader. He's all 'war, war, war' instead of 'peace and prosperity.' So do they just follow him because he's his dad's kid and Merlin stuck him on the throne?"

Claire bit her bottom lip for a minute before replying. "I mean, when we had Civics class with him freshman year, Strickler said that the right to rule derives from the consent of the governed, right? So if everyone follows Arthur because they believe in the divine right of kings or whatever, then, yeah."

"In retrospect, knowing what we now know about the Janus Order makes everything in that class a wee bit creepier," Toby said thoughtfully. His arms circled. "Whoa!"

Jim caught him before he overbalanced. "Think we need to get Draal to add this rock to the Forge?" he asked, grinning.

"Couldn't hurt," Toby agreed. "Think we can carry it home?"

"According to Douxie, probably not," Jim informed him.

Toby's gaze shifted beyond Jim. He turned to follow Toby's line of sight. "Jim, what do we do about Deya?" Toby asked. She was, with Bagdwella and a handful of others, clearly watching the chaos of the training lessons, rather than participating in them. As Jim watched, Bagdwella disdainfully shoved Deya, then scooted farther away from her.

"I mean," said Jim, "she did okay the first time."

"Yeah," said Toby, "but she could do better this time, if we helped her. None of this figuring stuff out by your lonesome crap."

"Be careful about changing the timeline too much, Toby," said Claire. "I know you like her, and I do too, but she's gotta become Deya the Deliverer on her own. We're not going to be around to help her."

"But we're here now," said Toby.

That... was true. And Deya was one of Jim's people. His to help and protect.

He thought about the golden strands he'd as much as seen emanating from Arthur in his throne room. The web of divine kingship that connected the king to each of his subjects.

~~Jim didn't have subjects; he had friends.~~

He wet his lips, trying to find words.

Toby fixed him with a gaze. "It's not Trollhunter," his best friend said quietly, "it's Trollhunters."

Jim's words died, because Toby was right. That was what Jim had said, what Jim had done, what Jim had made them all.

He couldn't make Deya go things alone, not when she was one of them. Not when she was one of his.

"Tonight," he promised Toby. "After she gets the amulet." When she tries to reject it. "We'll talk to her then."

"Which one speaks to you?" asked Merlin, indicating all the great gems inlaid on the map of the Round Table.

Douxie knew automatically which one was the focal stone of his staff. Knew, as he hadn't the first time, that Merlin was asking him to choose the stone for that purpose. Over the last few days, any time he'd been in this room, that gem had caught his attention because of what it would be, the promise that he was so close to achieving mastery and getting his staff back--

But I'm not the same person I was then, am I?

It had been nearly two years in Douxie's life since he'd chosen that stone the first time. And while two years should seem laughably short compared to the nine hundred and seventeen that preceded it... they had been very eventful years.

"A wizard does not make mistakes; he makes unexpected possibilities."

Would, as with the Trollhunter amulets, a different stone give him different options? Different abilities? Different possibilities?

"What kind of hero would I be, if I sacrificed everyone else?"

Jim's words had shaped and changed him, though they hadn't even been directed at him. Was the same gemstone even appropriate, since he'd changed so much? His outside would look the same until the day he died, but Douxie's interior landscape had grown dramatically in such a short time.

"We are the children of the stars, and we shine brightest when we rise."

Douxie took a breath and closed his eyes. He sent out his magic and his hand, hovering, testing.

"...A wizard's staff is everything to them...."

The gems sparkled to his magical senses. Glimmered. Each protected from here a magical node in the land where leylines crossed. They kept things stable in a way few would appreciate.

And Merlin was giving him one of them.

He thought of Merlin's emerald. Taliesin's opal.

One by one, gems faded from Douxie's mind. They were beautiful. Powerful, in a way that spoke of magical gem cutting.

But they were diamonds and rubies and amethysts the size of a man's head, and they none of them resonated with him.

Douxie opened his eyes again, unsurprised to find his hand hovering once again above the sapphire. His sapphire. It seemed no matter how he'd changed, something in him was intrinsic after all.

"This one," he said huskily.

Merlin nodded, and budged him aside to chip the gem out. It left a great hole in the map, one that had persisted into modern Camelot because Douxie had never had time to track down an appropriate replacement gem, and no one else knew it was necessary.

Well.

Wales was technically not Douxie's highest concern in the future, the way it had been Merlin's here and now. Homeland, yes, but saving the whole world had been a bit more important, so he thought the lapse was acceptable.

(The Merlin of the future, Douxie thought, surely had not deemed the lapse acceptable. But he would deal with that iteration of his master or not-master, as the case might be, once he returned home.)

Merlin handed the gem to him. It wasn't the biggest in the Table, nor the most valuable. But its clarity as the sunlight streamed through it was beautiful.

~~Jim was the sun, and had shown Douxie his purpose.~~

"Come," said Merlin. "Your younger self should have the Oraculum ready."

"Wait, Master--"

Merlin turned back to him.

Douxie's words disappeared. Instead, he reached into his hoodie pocket and drew out the Time Map, handing it to Merlin.

Merlin's eyebrows raised. "I had thought you would still need this."

Douxie shook his head. "Micromanaging does no one any good. At some point, you just have to take a leap of faith."

Merlin's expression bounced, surprised. "Finally learned that, have you?" he asked, with just a bit of a smile.

Douxie nodded. He didn't quite feel sick to his stomach, letting go of the map, but there were definitely butterflies roaming in his innards.

But he had to trust time, and Jim, and, just now, Merlin.

"Well," said Merlin. "Let us go make that amulet. And a staff."

Douxie followed where Merlin led.

"Ugh, this sucks!" proclaimed Mary, flopping dramatically onto Aja's four-postered curtained bed. She rolled over onto her back. "I am so bored!"

"You should try the exercising," said Aja. Mary turned her head to look at her through the open doorway. Out in the suite's main room, Aja and Darci were currently being led by Zadra in some sort of slow-motion martial arts form. It looked like Tai Chi or something. Alien Tai Chi.

Akiridion Tai Chi, Mary corrected her thoughts.

"Or you could read like Krel," Darci suggested, flowing from one stance through a half-pivot into another so she was facing away from Mary. She glanced over her shoulder and grinned. "Any book that interesting has to be good."

"It is my book, and I am reading it before I have to return it to Dictatious!" Krel's voice came from the other bedroom. "Also, I am not sure that (a) Mary can read it, being that it is written in Trollish, or (b) that she is interested in geomantic theorems."

"Ugh, no." Mary slumped down on the bed again. "I am so bored," she repeated plaintively, aware that she was whining but not able to stop herself. Her fingers rubbed at her amber pendant. Static electricity sparked between her fingers. She shook it off.

"The battle," Zadra said coolly, "will be tomorrow. Today is for preparations. You should take this time to ready yourself."

Mary snorted. "By doing what? Either I can call down lightning or I can't. There's not really an in between. And I bet the knights would get twitchy about me practicing."

Darci laugh-snorted. "Oh, would they ever," she agreed.

"We get through the battle, kick Gunmar's butt through the Killahead Bridge, and then we go home," said Aja.

"Home," Mary and Darci sighed as one.

"Your home," Zadra reminded them.

"General Morando will be there," Aja reminded her.

Zadra was silent. But Mary could see her hand clench into a fist as she moved. "I will remove the traitor's spine with my own hands," Zadra said eventually.

Aja grinned. "Now you are sounding like Varvatos!"

"Going to miss Lancelot?" Darci asked Mary.

She snorted. "Mister won't even give a girl a kiss? No."

Aja and Zadra exchanged a glance.

"I do not even like romance, and I can tell that you are bitter," Krel called from the other room.

"Yeah, well." Mary crossed her arms and rolled away, facing the head of the bed.

After a moment, a weight shifted the mattress. "Mary," said Darci softly. "You know he's going to die tomorrow, right?"

"What?!" Mary rolled back, sitting up.

Darci nodded, quiet and solemn. "I put it together from things Claire said. King Arthur's gonna die tomorrow - and so will a lot of his knights. Including Sir Lancelot."

Mary stared at her. "No." She shook her head. "No, that's not how it's supposed to work. I go home and find boyfriends, and he stays here and has a long life and regrets not kissing me or something. That's how it's supposed to work!" Her voice rose on the last word. "He's not supposed to die!"

Darci shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mare."

She stared uncomprehendingly at Darci. Golden Sir Lancelot, with his perfect hair and gentlemanly behavior. With a laugh that lifted everyone up, and warmth like a fire. He couldn't just die! "I could... I could stop it from happening," she started, her mind beginning to think of ways.

Darci snorted. "Mare, he dies taking on Bular. Gunmar's son. The dude that took out Trollhunter after Trollhunter. I don't think you can nail the guy."

"Nothing can survive a lightning strike!"

"One, I hear he's pretty good at dodging, and, two, yes people can. And have. Besides...." Darci's eyes met Mary's then looked away. "Remember all that stuff about the timeline trying to heal itself?" she asked quietly. "I don't think Lancelot's meant to survive."

Mary stared in horror.

Zadra snorted and straightened from her pose. "To die in glory is no small thing for a warrior."

"Dead is dead!" Mary snapped.

"True." Zadra eyed her. "But there are far worse deaths than giving one's utmost, and falling in service of one's purpose - the defence of his royal, and his people."

"But--"

"Mary." Aja was on her other side, taking Mary's hand between her own. "You are not a warrior. And you do not need to be. We do not wish you to be, unless that is your calling! But for those of us who are... it is no bad thing to die in service of one's principles."

Tears were filling Mary's eyes. She shook her head, still trying to deny it.

"There is this," said Krel, leaning against the door frame. Mary looked up at him. "We have data that death is not the end. And that the bonds between people influence what your people call 'fate'."

Mary blinked, not understanding what he meant.

Krel sighed and looked at the ceiling. "According to Douxie's knowledge of how this whole 'space-time-love' thing works, if you really have a connection to him, you will meet Sir Lacks-a-lot again sometime. Maybe in this life, maybe in another."

"I don't want him to die," Mary whispered.

"You cannot prevent it," said Zadra. "Not without breaking this history of yours." Her hand came to rest on Mary's shoulder. "What you can do," she said quietly, "is to send him nobly off to his death. Not with tears and weak wiles, but with pride. Pride in knowing who he is, what he does, and that he will remain true to himself until the end."

"There are worse ways to die," said Aja softly. She met her brother's gaze. Both their mouths thinned, until they looked away from one another.

Mary sniffed. Blinked a lot. Rubbed at her eyes. "I don't know if I can," she said, looking down. "But I'll try."

Cool fingers caught under her chin, raising her gaze. Zadra smiled at her. "There are many types of courage," she said. "Hold fast to yours."

Author's Note: Claire quotes from Henry V, by Shakespeare.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 182/?

sakon76 — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 17:05:25 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 3rd January, 2025

"That," said Jim, "cannot be comfortable."

"That is what I said!" Aja agreed.

Douxie lay sat up in the corner of Aja and Krel's shared sitting room, head leaning a little to one side, propped against the stone wall. Fast asleep.

"I covered him with a blanket," said Steve. "That's good, right?"

"Yeah, Steve," Jim said, nodding absently. "You did good."

Next to him, Claire sighed out softly. "I wish we didn't have to wake him," she murmured.

"I know." The dark circles under Douxie's eyes were about as bad as Jim had ever seen them. He knew the wizard had been stressed, keeping him alive and dodging homicidal gods in the fifth century... and then they hadn't even had a full week's break before getting thrown back to the twelfth century, with a whole lot more people tagging along that Douxie felt responsible for.

Jim felt responsible for getting his friends home while keeping the timeline intact, too, but Douxie took it all on like it was his own personal burden. Like he was Atlas. Like being a 900-year-old Master Wizard made him responsible for everything....

It kind of does, Jim thought. Because I might have made us all Trollhunters, but he can't make us all wizards.

Except... they kind of had, theoretically, when Jim broke Gaylen's Core.

Maybe Douxie hadn't internalized that yet?

Maybe, Jim thought, until everyone else starts showing signs of wizardry, he's not going to.

But for now, much as he knew more sleep would do Douxie good, he really couldn't let his brother sleep. There was too much that needed to be done, and too much he needed to impart, and ask about.

"Doux," said Jim gently, kneeling. He touched a hand to Douxie's shoulder. "You need to wake up."

Douxie's breath slowed for a second, then his gold-and-green eyes opened. There were crow feet around the edges, Jim noticed, making him momentarily look older than their mom. They vanished as Douxie blinked a few times. "Jim...?"

Jim's mouth made a line. "I need you to wake up," he repeated. "There's some stuff I need to talk with you about... and then Merlin probably needs another pair of hands to make that amulet."

Douxie stared at him, slumber fleeing his expression. Then he groaned, his head falling back against the corner.

"Yeah," said Toby sagely. "I feel that way about working with Merlin, too."

Sleeping on the bare stone had been stupid, Douxie acknowledged to himself. Even in the height of summer, like now, the sandstone was cold and sucked body heat away like little else. Plus he was stiff. So he kept the blanket wrapped around himself as he resettled himself onto the padded chair near the window.

"Here," said Darci, handing him a mug of tisane.

Douxie sniffed at the concoction - mainly lavender and peppermint, by the smell of it, with a dollop of honey added in, and said mournfully, "I miss coffee."

That elicited a chuckle going around the room, as he'd half hoped. He gave himself the grace of a smile before taking a hearty swallow, letting the heated beverage warm his mouth and belly. "So. What news, my liege?"

That earned him an eye roll from Jim, but no protest. "Arthur's made peace - sort of - with Dwoza."

"We left Varvatos there to begin the training for the battle of Killahead," Krel added in.

Steve perked up at "training" and "battle." "I could help with that!"

"And you will," Claire promised. "Aaarrrgghh broke in with Gunmar's demands while we were there," she said. "He's subdued, thanks to Jim and Deya, and Blinky's in charge of him. So that's going according to plan."

"Claire dumped Merlin in the Shadow Realm to keep him from interfering with that fight," said Jim. Douxie's jaw dropped. "On the plus side, he now believes us about Morgana and the Arcane Order."

"You did what?!" Douxie demanded of Claire, uncertain whether he was amazed or horrified. Or possibly some mix of both.

She gave a small, taut smile. "I couldn't think of what else to do. And it worked! Whatever he saw in there convinced him."

Douxie's mouth worked soundlessly for a second as his brain tried to catch up before noticing her expression. Oh. She's not sure if she did the right thing. And I'm her teacher....

He drew a breath. "Well done," Douxie complimented.

The tension fell from her shoulders.

Douxie let out a sigh. "All right. Busy morning. Anything else we should all know?"

Now it was Krel who fidgeted. "I may have promised Vendel you and I would strengthen Dwoza's heartstone, to help support all the refugees."

Douxie looked flat at him.

"I figured out a way!" Krel said. "Dictatious let me go through his library and I found the relevant volume of Gems and Geodes! Its information on the energy retention qualities of heartstones was very useful. I think, with a little time and effort, we can definitely increase the amount of energy it absorbs from your planet's mantle." He was beaming. "That stupid science fair turned out to be worthwhile after all."

Douxie sighed. "All right," he acquiesced. "But can that wait until after I've helped Merlin make the Amulet of Daylight, so that I at least have my staff first?"

"I mean... maybe?" Krel guessed.

"All right. Anything else?" Douxie asked, and took another drink of the tea.

"Uhh." Jim cringed preemptively. "I may have gotten the shard of Gaylen's Core jammed further into my amulet and met that unicorn again?"

Douxie choked on his drink.

Mary grabbed the cup from him even as Eli pounded him on the back. "What?" Douxie wheezed as soon as he had enough air to do so.

Jim grimaced. "So, about the shape of time...." he said.

"Master?" Hisirdoux asked as Merlin came stalking into the workroom, looking harried and... haunted, maybe?

His master stopped and stared at him for a full half minute. Long enough for Hisirdoux to become nervous. Long enough for Archie to become nervous and jump down from where he'd been laying on the lower table, coming to stand by Hisirdoux's feet, tail winding around his own four feet as he regarded Merlin.

"Hisirdoux," snapped Merlin. "I require...." His voice faltered. "I require...."

Hisirdoux stared as Merlin's hands came up to his face and his master stepped backwards, sinking down onto the steps up to the higher level of the workroom. He had never seen Merlin like this. "Master! Are you all right? Shall I fetch the surgeon--"

He was cut off, stopped from leaving by Merlin's hand snaking out and grabbing his wrist.

"Master...?"

"No medic shall avail me," said Merlin. "No posset, no potion. Only acting for the greater good shall cure that which ails me."

Hisirdoux stood there silently, not understanding.

Merlin sighed and released him. The master wizard gazed pensively across the room. But he wasn't, Hisirdoux thought, actually looking at anything. More just... gazing into the distance. "A wizard does not make mistakes," Merlin said quietly. "But sometimes, Hisirdoux, he does not foresee all the paths to which his actions may lead." His face darkened. "Especially not when gods come meddling," he muttered. "At least they can't--" He cut himself off, eyes flickering sharply to his apprentice.

Like there was something Merlin didn't want him to hear, Hisirdoux thought. With a sigh, he acknowledged to himself that there was lots of that. Merlin hardly trusted him with anything! "Is there anything I can do to help, Master?" he asked instead.

Archie's eyes were narrowed, Hisirdoux noted, and fast on Merlin. Like his familiar had his own suspicions about his master.

"Food, and drink," Merlin instructed. "And...." He sighed, looking Hisirdoux up and down. "And the presence of your elder self."

Hisirdoux brightened, at first, then wilted, realizing that if Merlin wanted the older him, it meant his master didn't want the current him. "Yes, Master," he muttered as Archie glared.

Glumly, Hisirdoux trudged toward the workroom door. Unwanted and cast out.

Not for the first time, he thought as the door closed behind him and Arch. And probably not for the last time either.

"So. Um." Jim's brain stopped working as soon as he was on the spot and everyone expected him to tell them about magic. Him! He was barely able to make his own amulet work some days.

"Jim." Douxie, recovered from his coughing fit and oddly looking better after it than before it, held up a hand. "Start at the beginning. When you get to the end, stop."

Jim glared at him. How dare Douxie use his love of the mad tea party against him!

Toby snickered.

"Right." Jim tried to marshal his thoughts. "Okay. Um. First off." His fingers tapped at the edge of his amulet. "Gaylen made the Time Stone."

Douxie's eyes flew wide. As did several other people's.

"An early experiment with crystalline forms...?" wondered Krel.

Jim frowned. "I think... I think he was trying to surpass his master having made the Time Map."

"Wait, Taliesin made the Time Map...?" Douxie's head thunked against the back of the chair as he looked at the ceiling. He let out a sigh. "Of course he did," he muttered. "And apprentices always try to surpass their masters."

"How does this fit in with a unicorn?" asked Mary.

"I'm getting there," Jim told her. "So when the shard got pushed further the Time Stone, it sent me back to Atlantis. Taliesin said the Time Stone was unstable, or something. That it was hurting Time, and that it would cause time quakes unless they caged it. So he and Gaylen built the Chronosphere. I guess the stone wanted me to see that. Then it sent me back to sixth century again, to the unicorn."

"Dude, I still cannot believe you met a unicorn," said Steve. Eli, seated cross legged next to him, nodded.

"Me either," muttered Jim. He didn't know how to explain the unicorn. That it wasn't just a horse-like thing with a horn. That it was more. That the universe talked through it, and this time he'd known how to listen. "It... showed me things."

"The shape of time," Toby said, like he was following some plot line Jim couldn't even see.

Jim nodded. "It's... time's like a...." His words failed him. The gulf between the feeling, the understanding, in his head, in his chest, and how to put it into words, seemed insurmountable. But he had to try anyway. "It's... like a snake biting its own tail. What's the word for that?" he asked Claire.

"Orouborous," she, and a couple other people, answered.

"Yeah, that." Jim ran his hand through his hair. "And it's not just this planet that the timeline covers. It's the whole galaxy. The whole universe. So why stuff is so concentrated on us, I don't know."

"Well, Earth is the only planet with magic," Krel offered.

"That we know of," rebutted his sister.

"You mean, all that superior tech you keep saying you have in outer space, and no one's messing around with time machines?" Mary demanded.

Krel shrugged. "I mean, possibly? But if they were, it certainly never was something that came to my attention."

"Magic," said Douxie quietly, "subverts the natural laws of the universe. It's... it's like the thumb," he said, raising his hand and wiggling that digit slightly, "that allows us to grip something and move it. It's part of the universe, but a part that acts differently than the rest. So if Earth truly is the only, or even one of the few, places where magic is wielded, it makes sense that we might be a focal point."

The others, Jim saw, were nodding, accepting this illustration. "The thing is - remember when you told me about octopuses?" he asked Douxie. "That some people thought they were the only survivors of a universe that came before ours?"

Douxie nodded.

"If the time snake gets agitated enough," Jim said, "it writhes and turns over. And that's the end of our universe and a whole new one gets born from the ashes."

"Wait, we're talking the end of the universe here?" demanded Darci.

Jim shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe?"

Steve had his head in his hands and was moaning about time snakes.

"It's a metaphor, Steve," Claire snapped. She glanced at Jim. "I hope?"

He nodded at her. It wasn't even a very good metaphor, he thought, but it was the best he had.

"If the Chronosphere caged the Time Stone before," said Krel, "I assume your amulet is doing the same thing now."

Which... was something Jim hadn't even considered. He shrugged again.

"So what does this mean for us?" asked Eli.

Jim spread his hands wide. "I have no idea," he said. "But it's apparently something important enough that the universe unicorn and/or the Time Stone decided I needed to know it, so I'm letting you guys know too so that we can figure out what to do about it... or not."

"Gotta say, Jimbo," Toby said thoughtfully, "starring in one of the Future Warrior movies was never on my bucket list, but... yeah. Checking that one off now."

Jim had to smile. "Sorry I couldn't manage Gun Robot."

"Pssht." Toby waved that off. "You couldn't manage Gun Robot... yet." His gaze slid sideways to Eli.

"Man, who even cares about Gun Robot?!" Steve wailed.

Well. Facing the possible end of the universe was... not ideal, Douxie thought. But oddly, it wasn't setting off his anxiety either.

"Jim," he said, catching everyone's attention. "I really don't think that the time snake--" and Douxie had to smirk at that term because it was so ridiculous but at the same time so apt, "--is going to throw a fit."

The others exchanged looks at that. "Uh, how do you figure that, Doux?" asked Claire.

He settled back further into the chair, running his finger around the rim of his mug. "If Gaylen, with everything he did, not even limited to making the Time Stone, didn't manage to end the universe, what makes you think we will?"

That earned him silence.

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well," he murmured philosophically. "Also, even if this universe did end... there is still the next to come."

"Uh, what?" Toby asked him.

Douxie looked up. "I am quite sure that, even if this universe ends, we'll all find each other in the next."

He had everyone's attention now.

"I... do not follow you," Aja said slowly. It seemed to be the general sentiment.

Douxie gave them all a small smile. "Do you really think ours is the first universe to exist?" It was, as far as he understood the numbers, mathematically unlikely. "That others haven't come before, and others won't come after?"

"Not sure that's comforting, Doux," said Toby.

"It is, actually." Douxie set the cup on the floor and straightened. "Remember when we were taking Aja and Krel down into Trollmarket the first time? And we talked about fixed points? About how all of us," his finger swept the room, "were connected before we ever knew it?"

He got nods at that, from those who had been there. Eli looked like he was following, as did Mary and Darci. Zadra looked dubious, but that seemed to be her default expression.

"The next universe will almost certainly look, be, different than this one," Douxie explained. "'Time unfolds differently, like a flower'." He let Nari's wisdom sink in for a moment before adding, "But do you really think the connections between us would just cease to exist? Matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only--"

"--Only transformed," Krel said, looking like he was having an epiphany.

Douxie nodded.

Jim's nose was scrunched up as he clearly thought hard. "...Timeline echoes?" he asked.

Douxie nodded again. "It's not 'space-time'," he said. "It's more like 'space-time-love.' Even if we fail," he promised. "Even if Jim can't reset time and let us all have another go... well," he said, with a significant look at Jim, whose words he was echoing, "If it's meant to be, it will be. I promise you, my friends, we will find each other in the next universe. And fight the good fight there."

Eli and Steve exchanged a look. "You know," said Eli, his voice cracking, "for all the magic and battle stuff I've seen you pull off, that was maybe the most master wizard-y thing so far."

"Thank you," Douxie told him. "I think."

Which was when a knock came on the door and, not waiting for an answer, his younger self and familiar came unceremoniously inside, interrupting the spiritual tableaux.

"Master Merlin wants you," Hisirdoux told his older self. He even managed, he thought, to mostly not sound bitter about it.

His older self, seated near the window and swaddled in a blanket of all things, looked surprised. "Oh," he said. Then, "Already?"

"Nervous, Teach?" asked Claire.

He shook his head. "No. Just...." His voice trailed off.

"The sooner you go, the sooner you and I can work on that project in Dwoza," said Krel.

"Project in Dwoza...?" murmured Archie, reflecting Hisirdoux's own thoughts. They had apparently missed a great deal. No one ever told them anything!

"Thought this was what you wanted," said Jim.

"It is!" Douxie glared at Jim. "It's just...."

"It's big," said Claire, laying her hand on top of Douxie's.

He gave a small laugh. "Yeah. That."

"What are we talking about?" asked Steve plaintively.

"I don't know either," said Hisirdoux. He narrowed his eyes at his older self as Douxie stood. "When do I get to know?"

His older self looked torn.

"If you were me, wouldn't you want to know what was going on?" Hisirdoux argued. "No one tells me anything, not you, not Master Merlin, and it's not fair!" He couldn't keep the whine from his voice.

"Hey--" several overlapping voices protested, but his older self ignored them all as he crossed the room. Gold and green eyes that were a match for Hisirdoux's own looked at him from the same height as Douxie laid a hand on his arm.

"You're right," Douxie said quietly. "It's not fair, is it? Making you do all the legwork and not telling you what's going on." He glanced back at the other time travelers, then returned his gaze to Hisirdoux. His thumb brushed back and forth, a soothing arc. He leaned in close. "Want to see what our staff looks like?" he murmured.

It took a moment for the implication to percolate through Hisirdoux's understanding, even as Archie's eyes flew wide. "Master Merlin's giving you a staff?!" he squeaked. "Giving... us a staff?"

Douxie nodded, smiling. "Worth waiting nine centuries for, isn't it?"

"YES!" Hisirdoux could have danced on air, he felt so light. He'd get his staff! One day, he'd finally become a master and get his staff!

"Beg pardon, did you say nine centuries?" asked Archie.

Douxie held his finger to his lips as he looked at their familiar, indicating a secret.

Archie's eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

"Now come on," Douxie said to Hisirdoux, clapping him on the shoulder. "I've work to do, and I'm sure so do you."

"Oh yes," Hisirdoux babbled, too elated to attempt restraint. "I've got to get that tray of food and drink for Master Merlin--"

"Well, soonest begun, soonest finished," said his elder self, leading him to the door. Hisirdoux nodded.

Douxie's sleeve was caught, though, by Jim's fingers as they exited. "One minute," he said, and stepped out into the hallway with them. "What you said back there," Jim said, nodding toward the royal guest suite. "Was that just words, or...?"

Douxie shook his head. "Mordrax's own truth," he swore, paired fingers in the air making it a vow.

"How do you know that's the truth?" asked Jim.

Douxie's smile was small and weighted with experience. "The same way I know what comes after death, Jim. Training, and... encounters of my own."

Jim looked surprised.

"Excuse us," Douxie said, and led the way, Hisirdoux and Archie going to the kitchens... and Douxie to Merlin's tower.

Outside Merlin's door, Douxie drew a fortifying breath before he knocked. This might not be the creation of the Trollhunter amulet, which required two master wizards to lock it together... but he rather thought it was. Particularly if Merlin had suddenly become convinced of Morgana's resurrection and the wrath (and fell Arcane forces) that now drove her.

I've been chomping at the bit for months now, wanting my staff back, thought Douxie. I'm better prepared to wield it - and to help make it! - than I was the first time. And I need it, not only for Krel's promises to Dwoza, but to help fend off Morando and the Order, once we get home.

So why am I hesitating?

I fixed the Heart of Avalon. I got Nimue to fix Excalibur. I'm even on the way to fixing this entire blip in the time stream. It's got to be enough, right?

Enough to....

Douxie's face fell.

Enough to make Merlin look at me like he's proud again.

Douxie sniffed and forced the tears back even as they flooded his closed eyes. He scrubbed his sleeve across his eyes.

Merlin loves me in his own way. Even if it's seldom been the way I wanted.

The way I needed.

He let himself have a moment - but only a moment. He needed to go in before his younger self and Archie caught up from their errand in the kitchens, and found him crying here in the hallway.

"No wonder Jim and I understand one another so well," Douxie muttered aloud. "At least he found some good dads later in life."

He forced himself to straighten up, to sober up, to shore up all the places that wanted to bleed. And to knock on the door. "Master?"

"Come in," said Merlin's voice from within.

Douxie obeyed.

Even were it not for the strange hair coloration (blue, of all things! did the boy wish to advertise to the wider world what he was?), Merlin should have known the elder version of his apprentice from the younger by their gait alone.

The child Hisirdoux was hesitant, mincing, cautious. His future version was no less light of foot, but walked with far more self-confidence than Merlin had ever seen from the shyster he'd taken in. At some point, apparently, Hisirdoux would find a place he belonged, and grow into himself in a way not even Camelot had allowed.

Douxie walked toward him, quietly but full of the rock-solid self-assuredness that made him a man. Made him... and here Merlin's mouth twisted wryly, because he'd never thought he'd see the day... worthy of being a master.

Douxie knelt before him, where Merlin still sat on the steps. "It's time, isn't it, Master?" he asked softly.

Merlin sniffed, not feeling quite up to a full harrumph. "You already know what's going to happen, don't you?" he accused.

Douxie tilted his head to the side, acknowledging. "I do," he said.

"Because you remember it, I suppose."

The young man turned to glance back at the door. He must be waiting for his younger self to catch up. When Hisirdoux failed to appear, Douxie looked back at Merlin. "I don't, actually," he admitted. "There's a great gaping hole in my memories around the last few days and weeks."

Merlin didn't gape, but it was a near thing. "Whyever do you not remember something so important as this?"

Douxie stood and offered a hand. Merlin took it, letting his apprentice haul him to his feet. "Because I already sleep-spelled my younger self once, when we first got here. And if you think I'm letting that moppet anywhere near the battle to come, you've drunk too much of Sir Galahad's ale," he said cheerfully.

Merlin glared. "Repeated sleep spells can damage the memory."

Douxie nodded. "Believe me, I know that now. But Arch hasn't seen fit to enlighten me for centuries, so...." His shrug was careless, explanatory.

Merlin sighed. "Well, if you've parsed out what's to come, we had best get to it. Battle, and Gunmar, wait for no man."

That earned him a snicker and a nod.

The door banged open. "Master, I've brought you a tray!" the younger version of his apprentice caroled, followed, as always, by his familiar.

"Put it on the table, Hisirdoux," Merlin directed. "Your older self and I have work to do."

Hisirdoux's expression fell.

Douxie gave Merlin a glare, and crossed the room to his younger self. "Actually, we could use a hand," he said. Hisirdoux brightened. "Master Merlin needs some ores, and then I could certainly use some help hauling the Oraculum out of storage...."

Merlin watched his elder apprentice handle his younger, so easily, and hummed thoughtfully to himself, taking note even as he helped himself to a bit of bread and hard cheese. Watching the two lads, one so bright, the other so patient, get to work.

Perhaps a lighter hand might be a better approach to Hisirdoux in the future, once the time travelers had concluded their business and gone home.

Author's Note: Douxie quotes Julian of Norwich, and also references Jim loving the mad tea party from Alice in Wonderland (Disney animated version). The concept of space-time-love is from tainry's epic Bay'verse Transformers story Borealis.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 181/?

sakon76 — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 14:32:34 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 12th December, 2024

White-hot, the world slowed to a stop. Jim tried to breathe through the agony that he hadn't felt for... years, now.

Not since the last time a shard of magic had been slammed through a damaged amulet in his chest.

Timeline echoes, he thought, his teeth gritted as he focused on nothing more than getting his next breath. His heartbeat was loud in his ears.

In fact, it was the only thing he could hear.

Blinking as the pain... well, not ebbed, but became bearable, Jim looked up.

Everyone was still. Everything was still. It was like they were all frozen.

His eyes widened. What the--

He swallowed, and forced himself to think.

Well, priority one was standing up.

His chest still aching from the impact, he wriggled his way out from under Aaarrrgghh's hand and turned to look.

The current Gumm-Gumm general was only half facing Jim; his body, and the rest of his focus, was twisted to face Arthur, who was hanging still in the air, frozen mid-leap with Excalibur over his head and anger across his expression.

Jim turned.

Deya, with her scavenged mace, was running toward Aaarrrgghh.

Jim turned.

Blinky cowered behind barrels. Next to him, peering out, was Claire.

And everything was still.

Oh.

Somehow, Jim realized, he had been knocked out of time.

Glancing down at the crystal shard sticking out of his chest, he frowned. "I know Douxie said not to touch you," he said, "but I'm kind of in the middle of something here." Something important, too: if he and Deya didn't manage to imprison Aaarrrgghh, Blinky would never get him to change sides. And if Arthur managed to kill Aaarrrgghh the way he clearly wanted to, well, that would fracture the timeline all to hell.

He raised his hand to the shard, but paused before touching it. The image of Vendel clicking his tongs flashed through his mind. As did the image of the Green Knight--Arthur--ripping the whole thing out of his chest.

It wasn't the same shard, but the similarities were undeniable.

If I screw this up, Jim knew with a sudden, absolute certainty, I will die.

The thought was enough to give him pause. He didn't want to die. He really didn't want to die. And if he died like this, frozen out of time, not even Claire's magic and tears would be able to save him.

(He and Toby had spent a weekend solid teasing her about her Rapunzel-like qualities, until she had finally acted on her threats and dumped them both into the Shadow Realm until they knocked it off. Yet somehow Douxie was still allowed to crack those particular jokes.)

But what other choice did he have? The shard hitting the amulet and the Time Stone once had blasted all of them back to Camelot. Which, hooray (theoretically) because it meant things were going (kinda) like they did the first time. But it getting shoved deeper didn't mean the blackout flare of pain that Arthur's shard had, nor the uncontrollable blinding rage that had been twinned to Jim's transformation into a full troll.

This isn't dark magic, Jim thought. This is just... part of an Akiridion core. Their god's core. And while Gaylen had done bad things, which Douxie was entirely too happy to seethe about if the Akiridions weren't in hearing range, Gaylen hadn't been entirely malicious. He'd created worlds, and made his people far, far more durable than they would have been had they remained on Earth.

Gaylen had been human once, and like all humans, he'd been capable of incredible complexity and simultaneous contradictions.

This was... nowhere as bad as Arthur's malicious magic, which had been purely meant for pain and destruction.

Still, Jim swallowed. He hesitated.

And then, drawing a deep breath, he touched fingers to the shard.

The world went white.

"--trying to master time itself was foolish!" a voice boomed, seemingly right next to Jim's ear.

He flailed, jumping to the side, waving his arms to keep his balance. "I'm sorry?" he offered, but the man who had suddenly appeared didn't seem interested in Jim at all.

In fact--

Jim looked around. He was in some kind of whitewashed circular room he'd never seen before in his life. Blue and green mosaic tiles decorated the floor in a watery pattern, reminding him a bit of the Roman mosaics on the floors of Merlin's old house. On the walls hung pieces of paper, dark writing and drawings on the cream paper. If Jim squinted, they looked a bit like Da Vinci's drawings. There were no windows, but, inset in the ceiling, a huge pane of glass let light in and revealed....

A huge stone, blue like Douxie's magic, reached overhead to the pale clouded sky. A heartstone; Jim could feel its welcoming warmth.

Jim's eyes grew impossibly wider. "Holy shit," he breathed, because Douxie had said... but....

"Atlantis?" Jim breathed, mind spinning.

"We exist in time!" another voice snapped, snapping his attention back to the matter at hand. "We travel forward through it, we have minds to allow us to look backward at it. Why should we not attempt to master it? Your Time Map--"

"Because we are not meant to master it! Guide it, yes, as any being might do. But to know it in its entirety? Man is finite, and some things are ineffable. Your egocentric experiment has destabilized time itself." the first voice retorted. A Black man, his hair done in long braids, wearing robes that reminded Jim of the ones Douxie had worn at Lake Baikal, wreathed his hands around a glowing green stone that hovered, twitching, flickering, in the air. His magic surrounded it, glowing all manner of colors, before dissipating like morning mist. He looked frustrated, irked.

"The Time Stone," Jim said, stepping toward it. "What's going on here?"

He was ignored, like he didn't exist.

"Can't you feel them?" the man continued. "The shudders. It begins."

"What begins?" the other man, younger, pale, dark haired, demanded in unison with Jim.

"Time quakes." The Black man looked up. "They will destroy this time and place where Time has been injured, unless we act quickly."

The younger man looked at him, clearly doubting, then closed his eyes and extended his hand to the Time Stone. He sang a low, wordless note.

The stone resonated, glowing stronger.

He broke off after a moment, looking pale. "You're right," he said. "Master--"

"We must cage it, prevent the wound from spreading," said the elder.

The younger nodded, raising a hand. Cabinets that Jim hadn't even noticed opened. "Dragon's tooth iron."

"Fae gold too, to redirect the eye. No one must know of this." A staff, or what Jim assumed was one, appeared in the man's hand. It looked almost nothing like Merlin or Douxie's. "The stone has been wrought; it cannot be unwrought. But neither may it be buried or entrusted. It must be concealed."

"Even that may not be enough," said the younger.

"It must be," said the elder, and for an instant his eyes seemed like they met Jim's before moving on.

He watched as materials flew around. The penny dropped. "You're making the Chronosphere, aren't you?" Jim asked, unanswered. He touched the edges of his amulet. "I'm still outside of time, aren't I?" he asked the Time Stone in it. "Why are you showing me this?"

"Gaylen," said the older man, stopping Jim's heart, "we need spider silk too, for the bindings. Go fetch some."

"Yes, master." The younger man bobbed a nod and sprinted out the door. Jim stared after him.

The man still remaining sighed, and dropped his head. "So talented," he murmured. "So impetuous." Then he straightened, his hand hovering over the floating Time Stone again. Lengths of metal bar lay on the table below it, waiting, Jim supposed, to be made into the Chronosphere. The man's eyes closed. "So ambitious."

"No kidding," Jim muttered. His heart was pounding. How do I get back to my own time? Because he wasn't Douxie. He didn't need to know the whole history of wizardry. Even if Gaylen, messing around with crystals, had managed to bind time itself into one, presumably as a prelude to turning people into crystals. But that was none of Jim's business except in a distant theoretical sense. He wasn't a wizard; he was a fighter. He needed to return to his own time. Well, to Arthur's time. To make sure that battle in Dwoza went as it was supposed to. Whatever had happened thousands of years ago in Atlantis really had no bearing on what Jim had to do.

Didn't it?

He watched as Gaylen returned, as the two wizards used their arcane powers to create a familiar cage around the Time Stone. Leashing its potential. Hiding it from view.

Hiding it in plain sight - a powerful artifact concealing the even more powerful one at its core.

Their magic burned white hot, blinding in Jim's sight. Until suddenly even he could feel the Chronosphere lock into place.

With a wrench, he was pulled elsewhere.

Jim suddenly stood face to face with the unicorn again. Around them, the world was still. He glimpsed out of the corner of his eye Douxie half hidden behind a bush, the wizard as frozen as everything else.

As frozen as everything but Jim and, apparently, the unicorn.

It tapped its tiny newborn horn against his amulet again. As before, the gears started spinning, faster and faster. A mechanical incantation, Jim thought, but beyond the simple basic meaning of the words, he knew as little about what that meant, magically, as he had the first time.

The unicorn looked up at him, its deep purple eyes speckled with scintillating stars, fathomless.

Like before, Jim fell in.

But this time, he wasn't alone.

Someone else was there with him, catching him in a cloud of sorrow and joy and amethyst light.

We are the part of the universe that looks up and says hello to itself, that someone whispered, wrapping around Jim like a summer's breeze. We see, and we watch, and we grow, and we grieve.

His voice didn't work for a minute, then-- "Are you the unicorn?" Jim croaked.

Laughter permeated him, more a sensation than a sound. That is a word for us, yes. There are others.

"What am I doing here?" Jim asked. "Why are you showing me this?" He didn't understand, any more than he had the first time.

Because you must learn to see. Insubstantial fingers lingered over his amulet. Time has its hand raised to yours; will you not take it?

Douxie would. Jim knew that. Merlin absolutely would. But neither of them were being offered this. Jim was. And he wasn't a wizard. He was just him, a Trollhunter and divine king. He didn't use magic, didn't understand the deeper secrets of how the universe worked. He wasn't Douxie, wasn't Krel. He was, as Douxie had once put it, a man of action. Because actions spoke louder than words, and it was so, so much easier for Jim to show his love through deeds than to speak words that choked his mouth and made him trip over his tongue.

Easier to fight a false king than to ask Claire to a dance.

Easier to cook and clean and keep house than to tell his mother he was putting himself into danger every night.

Easier than anything to fight to defend his friends, his world; harder than anything to say "I love you."

Because words had so little meaning when your dad could ruffle your hair one night and say "Happy birthday, Jimmy. I love you." and be packed and gone before you even woke up the next morning.

Anyone could say "I love you." Showing it, proving you meant it, took a lot more work.

Jim swallowed.

"This will change me, won't it?" Because he might not know much, but he knew this was big. Maybe too big for him to handle. And he'd already been changed so much, either because of others' wills or because of what he'd taken on, what he'd accepted--

Every moment changes you. Mortal beings change and grow; is it not wonderful?

The unicorn sounded like Nari. He wondered if they knew one another.

"If I change too much, what about my friends?" asked Jim. "My family?"

You are afraid.

"Of course I'm afraid," said Jim. "It's rule one: always be afraid."

And what happens when you overcome fear, James Lake Junior?

He didn't know.

Jim closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to sort through his feelings and thoughts. They were mostly a jumbled mess, unhelpful and useless.

In the end, he found his answer in the memory of his real father's voice.

"Never forget that fear is but the precursor to valor," he murmured, tense shoulders easing down as the words soothed him, centered him. As they reminded him of who he was. "That to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero."

Jim opened his eyes and looked at the endless universe laid out before him. So beautiful. So precious. And somehow... so fragile. It needed someone to protect it.

And that someone, it seemed, was him. "Don't think," he whispered as the universe looked at him through eyes the color of Claire's magic. "Become."

Jim reached out his hand, and let the universe in.

Claire's eyes flew wide as Jim disappeared in a flash and reappeared midair, blocking Arthur's sword with one of his glaives. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a heap even as Deya ran in, swinging at Aaarrrgghh with a yell.

"Do you defend this beast?" Arthur demanded as he rolled to his feet.

"He's not a beast!" Jim snapped as Deya dodged Aaarrrgghh's swipe and actually landed a hit. "And he's not yours!"

"He is an enemy of the good!"

"You talk big about equality, but when it comes down to it, you just want to murder more trolls," Jim shot back. He and Arthur were circling one another. "Stick to taking care of humans, because you're no king here."

"Says the one who is neither man nor troll," spat Arthur.

Jim grinned toothily. "I'm neither, because I'm both."

"You cannot be both fish and fowl," the king protested.

"Watch me," said Jim, and ducked easily under the blow that came from behind him. Arthur, his attention on Jim not Aaarrrgghh, failed to see the hit coming in time, and flew backward under its power, crashing into a wall.

Jim spun. "Deya!" he called, catching her eye. "Go for it!"

Deya glanced upward, then broke into a toothy grin. "Got it," she said, and ran.

"Why, she's a coward after all," murmured Blinky, right by Claire.

Claire smiled. "Put a pin in that thought."

"A pin...?" Blinky clearly didn't understand what she meant.

"Hey, Aaarrrgghh!" Jim yelled. "Wanna dance?"

Aja looked at Douxie, sitting propped up in the corner of the room, and winced at the angle the wizard's neck was at. "That cannot be comfortable," she muttered.

"Let him sleep," said Darci, grabbing Aja's elbow and pulling her away.

Deya wondered, as she ran up the stairs, how Jim had known about her plan. Then she gritted her teeth and would have smacked herself in the forehead, except for the mace she held making that a very bad idea. Time traveler, duh. Which implied that he somehow knew what she was about to do. Except... dropping a cistern on someone's head, even if that someone was high up in the Gumm-Gumm army, couldn't really be an act of that much historical note, could it?

She put the thought aside with her mace as she reached her target. The cistern, she found, throwing her weight against it, was too heavy for her to budge. "Ow," she muttered, rubbing her arm. Which, duh again, she should have realized. The thing was a huge bowl, carved of solid stone, and filled with water.

And water was heavy.

She needed a new angle.

Backing off a couple paces, she examined the setup. Down below, she could hear Jim taunting General Aaarrrgghh, and the snarls of rage he got in response. He was probably being chased, she thought. Well, better him than her.

Off to the side of the cistern, there was a gap against the wall, just large enough for a troll to make their way through. It was probably meant for maintenance - or for the poor suckers who had set the thing up here to squeeze their way back out once it had been put in place.

But it was just small enough that it was perfect for Deya's needs.

She folded herself into the space, back against the wall, and inched her way up. Her legs were stronger than her arms, so if she braced herself and pushed... maybe that would be enough? She didn't have any better ideas, anyway.

Flagnard, the thing was heavy.

But as she applied herself, pushing as hard as she could, she felt it shift. Grinning, she redoubled her effort. "Gonna feel this tomorrow," she grunted. But if this worked, at least she'd have a tomorrow. She was under no illusion about how the Gumm-Gumms probably treated deserters.

"Why does he dodge, rather than engaging?" Blinky muttered to himself as he peered out between the barrels that comprised their meager shelter.

Claire smiled at him. "Jim's a pacifist."

"A pacifist?!" Blinky sounded shocked.

Well, Jim wasn't a perfect pacifist, Claire admitted. But he preferred not to fight if he didn't have to, and she couldn't blame him: fighting got exhausting real fast. She looked out between her own set of barrels, and had to smile. Except for the murderous rage on Aaarrrgghh's face, it was almost like watching the two of them train back home. Jim in his half form was impossibly fast, and was leading Aaarrrgghh in circles. "What better way," she murmured, thinking of Douxie's plan for the Arcane Order, and how alike he and Jim really were, "to defeat an enemy, than to make them into a friend?"

Blinky was silent for a moment. "I beg your pardon, lady sorceress," he said eventually, "but I fear that in the person of a Gumm-Gumm, there is nothing that could become a friend."

Claire's smile never dropped, because on this singular point, she knew more than he did. "How will you know, if you refuse to try?"

The witch was uncommonly secure in her point of view, Blinkous thought. And while it was true he had but rarely encountered human magicians, he couldn't help feeling that not all of them were like her. "You... truly think that he is redeemable?" he asked, gesturing outward from their place of concealment.

"I know so," she said calmly.

Huh. Blinky blinked, and turned back to watching even as the Camelot king finally levered himself up from where he had been flung against the wall, and a cry came from above: "Heads up!" Deya's voice called. "Drinks are on me!"

He watched, wide-eyed, as with a great sheet of water, the enormous gravity-fed cistern that supplied Dwoza with water came bounding down. The fact that it bounced rather than cracked or shattered was a testimony to the skill of the trolls who had made it.

Jim dodged handily. King Arthur flattened himself to the wall. But General Aaarrrgghh... tried to fight it. Tried to fight something well above his weight class, if, Blinky admitted, somewhat below his intellect.

There was something to be said about the futility of fists against the simple forces of nature: mass, gravity, and inertia conspired to defeat the Gumm-Gumm, trapping him wounded in one of the small spaces that was used most often to cache supplies or unruly younglings.

Blinky stared, agape. "I cannot believe that worked," he muttered, even as the human witch shoved barrels out of the way and ran to her lover.

"Jim!" she cried, her face aglow like a star.

"Claire!" He caught her up and swung her around, her skirts flaring.

Grinning, she caught him by the horns and pulled him in for a kiss.

Blinky shuddered. "How repulsive." He could not imagine kissing a human. So soft. So squishy. So... wet.

"Ugh." Deya had come back down the main staircase and apparently shared his feelings. "No accounting for taste, I guess."

King Arthur, meanwhile, wrenched his gaze away from the horrifying spectacle and stalked over to the trapped Gumm-Gumm, sword in hand. "I should end your miserable life, beast," he grated.

Jim broke away from his Claire with a glare. "You can't just go around killing everything," he snapped.

Arthur tensed.

Then, obviously, deliberately, made himself turn away. "The Gumm-Gumm is yours to dispose of," he told Vendel, who had returned, with cautious others, to the scene of the battle.

"Ours?!" This news clearly did not please Vendel. "We are not jailers."

"You're not a lot of things, it seems," Jim sniped at him. Unwisely, Blinky thought.

"And what would you have us do with him?" Vendel asked Jim, gesturing at Aaarrrgghh. "Our resources are already strained to the limit, and you do nothing but add more weight!"

"Perhaps he may be reasoned with," Blinky mused, approaching the Gumm-Gumm with an open hand. The trapped troll snarled and snapped teeth at Blinky. He yanked his hand back. "Or perhaps not!"

Vendel hummed. "If you are so interested in the rehabilitation of the brute, Blinkous, perhaps you should be in charge of his care."

"What? But I--"

Vendel nodded, settling the matter entirely.

Blinky wilted.

"Hate you," the brute growled.

The feeling, Blinky thought, was mutual.

There was something off, Claire thought, in Jim's expression as he looked at Blinky and Aaarrrgghh. As he looked at Deya, who sauntered down the stairs to mixed acclaim - apparently taking out a Gumm-Gumm general was laudable, but using the settlement's water source to do so was less praiseworthy.

"Hey," Claire said softly, catching Jim's attention. "What's wrong?"

"I, uh." His hand rubbed around the crystal jammed into his amulet. "I think I need to talk to Douxie."

Claire blinked. "Okay. We can do that." A simple shadow portal would get them to her teacher.

"Where," asked King Arthur, "is Merlin?"

"Uh." Oh crap. She'd almost forgotten she'd dumped him into the Shadow Realm. "Just a sec," said Claire.

A hasty swirl of black and purple magic later, the Shadow Realm disgorged its most recent, and probably least willing, occupant.

Merlin stumbled to one knee.

"Merlin!" Arthur actually went to his own knee to support him.

When the master wizard looked up, his gaze was haunted. "Morgana has allied with the Arcane Order," he said, his voice a husk. "My king, we must stand against her, or the worlds of men and magic have no chance."

"What?" asked Jim.

A chill ran down Claire's back. "Doux said once that the Shadow Realm is a place of mystery. And I've seen Morgana there. Not that certain people believed me," she couldn't help but add with a little spite.

Jim's arms were warm around her, chasing away the chill. "Well," he said thoughtfully. "I guess he believes you now."

"We must stand against her, and Gunmar," said Arthur, helping Merlin to stand.

"Provide us this weapon you promised, and we shall see," said Vendel levelly.

"The weapon, and men to train yours," Arthur promised.

"Jim!" Krel ran into the fray, followed closely by Toby and more distantly by Dictatious. "I think I have found the answer to Dwoza's energy supply! I need to talk with Douxie."

"Well," said Jim, looking at Claire, "back to Camelot, I guess?"

Claire nodded. And raised her hands to open the door between spaces.

Author's Note: Deya needing a new angle is a Big Hero 6 reference (and maybe a Moana 2 one as well). Her using "flagnard" as a curse word comes from Monsters Vs. Aliens. And Blinky's "perhaps he may be reasoned with" is from Lilo and Stitch.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 180/?

sakon76 — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 13:52:39 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 6th December, 2024

Vendel turned, sighing, at the sound of screams.

It wasn't that he hadn't had enough to deal with, of course, what with the sudden influx of refugees into Dwoza, straining their already taxed resources to their limit. Nor was it sufficient that he had that strange creature who claimed to be from another star seeking alliance...

No, of course not. There had to be something else.

Trouble came not in threes, but in any multiple of numbers, and not one thing after another, either, but all stacked on top of one another like a rock slide beginning to slip.

Still, it wasn't any surprise at all when he made his way toward the screams, and found them presaged by the younger Galadrigal brother, followed by the odd blue stranger who came with that alien prince, the mouthy green female he'd brought with him, and--

--"A human," Vendel grated dryly.

The human in question - small, dark haired, clad in flowing garments - smiled brightly up at him. A female, he thought, though he was never quite sure with humans. "Hi, Vendel!" she said brightly, as though familiar with him.

He had never seen her before in his life.

Then Vendel realized it wasn't just the one human invading Dwoza, and suddenly the screams made even more sense.

He was not a fighter, but he clenched his staff in both hands, ready to do whatever he must to defend his people--

King Arthur, of the accursed house of Pendragon, dropped to both knees.

His eyes, as he looked up at Vendel, were sorrowful.

"Please," he said, "Camelot needs aid."

Galahad paced the battlements. There were few enough hale-bodied knights left; with the couple good flagons of ale in his belly to warm and sustain him, he should be good for the duty until dawn, when another would take his place.

For now, the night was quiet. The few fires that had sprung up in the wake of the disaster had been put out, and while he could still smell the burnt timber when the night breeze shifted, those who had survived were taking what rest they could. And those poor souls who had not survived... well, they would wait until morning for rites and burial.

It had been, to put it bluntly, one hell of a day.

Movement to the side caught his attention; he turned to see Merlin's boy mounting the steps to the battlements. The young sorcerer put his hands on the stones and looked out into the night, past the long bridge that connected Camelot to the mainland.

Looked toward the Wild Woods.

Raising a hand to his bracelet, the boy spun magic around it, selecting a spell like a maid picking fluff off a dandelion. Eyes glowing in the torchlight, the boy cast it, a wash of blue rippling outward from himself.

After a moment, he slumped, looking relieved.

"What find ye, boy?" asked Galahad, stumping closer.

"Nothing, Sir Galahad. Well." The boy's lips quirked. "Not nothing, precisely. A few kelpies in the ocean. Some goblins on the cliffs, probably scavenging for bird nests." His eyes narrowed. "A single troll near the edge of the woods."

Galahad's eyes also narrowed. "A troll, eh?" he asked, looking out at the Woods, his hand on his sword.

"One troll," the boy emphasized. "Keeping an eye on things, I'd guess. Just like us."

Galahad hummed, gazing at the darkness beyond Camelot. The torchlight blinded his eyes; he couldn't see far beyond where it lit the bridge. "We could take care of the beast," he mused.

The boy scoffed. "With what army? The knights are all injured or exhausted."

"You could fight," Galahad retorted. "Ha! A fine tale that'd make - the aged knight and the boy sorcerer."

The boy snorted, a smile curving his mouth. "Fair enough," he allowed. "But Merlin bid me guard the castle in his absence, not go out and attack random trolls. Besides, the troll would see us coming, and they have much better night vision than you or I."

"True," Galahad allowed, and let the matter subside. The sea breeze skirled around them. Merlin's magic torches, handily, emitted no smoke for it to blow in his eyes. "That's a handy detection spell, lad."

"Sadly, it only works if you know what you're looking at." The boy sighed and slumped, elbows on a merlon. "What am I even doing, here?" he asked.

From his tone, Galahad thought the question was rhetorical. Still, he answered. "Guarding Camelot," he told the boy, hand on his shoulder.

"Mmm." The boy - Hissyduck, wasn't that his name? or something like that... - turned, looking at the damaged town and castle. "And a bang-up job I've done of that so far." He sighed and pushed away from the stone. "Nothing's going to attack us tonight, Sir Galahad, darkness or no. The danger's all tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow."

"If you are sure, lad. Best go find some rest, then, while you can."

"You as well, Sir Galahad."

"Nay; I'll stay my post."

A smile glimmered at the boy's lips. "As you will," he said, and made his way back to the stairs, disappearing down them.

Galahad turned back to the battlements, and began to pace out the night.

It had been a very long day and night, and Douxie badly wanted to find a bed, or failing that, some sort of sheltered horizontal surface, before dawn. And at that, he knew he had far and away not had the worst of it; he left that status to those who had lost either life or limb to Morgana's attack - to them, and to their loved ones.

I'm lucky, he knew. We were forewarned, and prepared. This all could have been so much worse.

But tell that to the twelfth century goodwives who had probably wept themselves to sleep.

Guilt curdled low in his stomach. He could have done more, should have done more--

I laid more wards than I did the first time, Douxie thought. I knew where more of the bombs were.

Not enough, the laments of the living chided him. Never enough.

Though the wails of the townsfolk and castle servants held more weight on his heart than the pained cries of Camelot's knights and squires.

I should be better, thought Douxie. Less vindictive. But it was hard to forget that which his own spellwork hadn't already eliminated from his mind. A wizard's memory seldom had the blurring that the passage of time allowed to mortals. So Douxie remembered all too well blows and bruises, the nauseating pain of injury after injury that he'd been so hard-pressed to hide from Merlin until they healed, because he absolutely could not afford to be turned out.

Camelot had been his last chance. His best chance. His only chance to master the power that bubbled out of him, to do more, to be more--

And she'd taken her payment in pain and neglect.

Well, he thought, forcing grim humor, at least it prepared me for the next nine centuries.

Right now, he craved nothing more than to curl up with the comforting presence of his familiar and sleep a dozen hours. But he knew that he'd never be able to climb up all the steps of Merlin's tower, so he resigned himself to a bench somewhere, or maybe a corner on the floor in Aja's chambers, if he could make it that far.

Alas, it was not to be. Because as he rounded a corner - and drat, the slorr's stable and thus presumably the beast itself, had survived - Douxie saw two familiar figures on a bench, leaning against each other in a doze.

Steve. And Eli.

The former, at least, had dried tear tracks on his face.

He sighed. He couldn't in good conscience just leave them there.

Another task before him, before he could sleep.

"Come on, lads," Douxie said, taking each by the shoulder and shaking them gently. "I'm sure there's proper beds somewhere calling your names."

Steve came awake with a confused garble, flailing. "I'll fight you all! Huh? Oh, hey, Douxie."

Eli just meeped and fell off the back of the bench. "Oww..." he moaned, a hand at the back of his head.

"Come on," Douxie repeated, hauling him up. "Sorry to wake you, but there's got to be better beds than this bench."

"Oh, definitely." Eli put a hand on his lower back, stretching his spine. But Steve just sat on the bench, looking lost.

Douxie paused. "Steve?"

"It's all real, isn't it? All those knights got hurt or killed." Steve wore a devastated expression. "But... we're the good guys, man! The good guys aren't supposed to get hurt."

Douxie sighed. And slowly sat down next to Steve. "Steve... real life isn't like a movie."

"I know that!" Steve's hands were in his hair. "It's just... it's not fair!"

Douxie bit his bottom lip. He had a lot of feelings about fair and about the knights of Camelot, but none of those were going to be helpful right now. "Steve... have you taken a good look at Sir Lancelot?"

"Uh, yeah. He's amazing." A small dreamy expression broke through Steve's distress.

"Have you noticed," said Douxie quietly, "that his left arm is artificial?"

"What? No it's not!"

But Eli's eyes were wide. "Oh my gosh, you're right, it is!"

"What?!" demanded Steve.

"Sir Lancelot," said Douxie, "lost his arm in battle many years ago, before I ever came to Camelot. And he's not the only one here injured. Sir Bedivere, too, has lost an arm. Sir Garrett was blinded as a child, long before he became a knight. And there are others. Yet they're still valued, and very dangerous men all." If not necessarily good. At least by Douxie's standards. Though Camelot's maimed knights had generally been kinder to him than their fellows.

"But--"

"If you can survive an injury," said Douxie quietly, "you can find a way to adapt around it. Prosthetics have been around for a long time. And bad things don't only happen to bad people, Steve; the whims of fate have absolutely nothing to do with morality."

"I don't wanna die," whimpered Steve.

Douxie froze. Oh.

So that's what this is about. Steve was a knight and the knights of Camelot were too, and a good number of them had just been injured or killed....

Douxie didn't know how to address that fear. As a wizard, he was immortal, so it wasn't something he had to think about except when people were actively trying to kill him. And in those moments he was generally thinking of something else - namely, how to get away.

Except... that wasn't quite true either, was it?

He'd had enough black moments when the shit of the world overwhelmed him and he'd wanted to die....

Douxie drew a shaky breath. "No one does, Steve," he said quietly, trying to feel his way through the conversation. "But in the end we all do. Even immortals. Even gods. We all have our moments in the sun, and then a long night's rest afterward."

Eli was button-lipped, Douxie noticed. Listening intently.

"But...."

"Toby died," said Eli unexpectedly. "...Didn't he?" he asked when the both of them looked at him. "I mean, Jim said so...."

Douxie nodded. "He did. Many of our allies and friends did." Many, many friends he'd had over the centuries had died. He still mourned them. But the funny thing about grief was, it softened from a sharp knife into... something gentler. Something that allowed you to miss the person, but more to remember the good times you'd had together.

"And Jim turned back time." Steve latched onto that. "He'd do that if any of us died, right?"

Douxie didn't want to break Steve's hope, but he had to. He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Why?" Steve stood. "Aren't the rest of us important too? Why is Toby worth more than us?!"

"Toby's not more important," Douxie said, refusing to take the bait. Except to Jim. "But his death was one straw too many. Jim had a chance to save everyone, and he took it. That's kind of a one time thing, Steve."

Steve's face crumpled. "So if I die...."

Now Douxie stood. "You didn't last time," he said. "We're going to try to make sure you don't this time. And if you get injured, we'll do our best for you, the same as Merlin did for Lancelot. But Steve, even if you do die... that's not the end."

"What?" overlapped with Eli's "It's not?"

Douxie shook his head, thinking of the afterlife's waiting room. Of the warm light coming through stained glass. Of the door that had opened to whatever came next, and how both Merlin and Morgana had seemed utterly at peace as they moved on, leaving the world to him. Leaving the last few shreds of wizardry in his bumbling, incompetent, unworthy hands.

He was wiped out, and sleep deprivation made you believe lies. Like that you weren't worthy to be a master wizard. He forced himself to refocus. "We go on. I swear it on my wizardry. Love endures. I've seen it."

"You promise?" whispered Steve.

"I would not lie," Douxie vowed. Not about this. "I promise."

Steve relaxed. "Okay," he murmured. "Okay...."

"What about ghosts?" Eli asked.

Steve tensed. "Ghosts?!"

"Well, I mean, this is a castle," Eli pointed out. "Wouldn't someplace like this be awesome for staging Hamlet? So are there ghosts?" he asked Douxie.

Regardless of Douxie's exhaustion, Eli's boundless enthusiasm for the outre made him smile. "Alas, there's no such thing," Douxie said. "Bar a few very specific circumstances, such as Kanjigar and the spirits of other past Trollhunters being bound to advise their successors."

Eli wilted. "Aww...."

"Though poltergeists are real enough," he mused; a bone tossed to the boy. "But thankfully rare. They're also definitely not the work of disgruntled souls left behind."

"Really?" Eli's eyes shone in the torchlight as Douxie began walking and the pair followed him, rather like ducklings, as he led the way back to Aja's chambers.

"Really," Douxie told Eli, as Merlin had once told him. "They're beings of their own, entirely unrelated to humans. Though they do feed on us. Specifically on the feelings of anguish and fear. Their lesser cousins tend to cause kitchen drawers to jam."

"Psychic vampires!" Eli crowed, fists clenched tight in triumph. "I knew it!"

The human king had some gall, Vendel thought, coming here, to Dwoza, to ask for aid. "After all you've done, you expect us trolls to fight this war for you?"

"No, not for me," the man protested. "With me; as equals."

Vendel snorted at the thought of Arthur Pendragon ever seeing trolls as equals.

"I vow," the king continued, "if we win this war, we shall live in peace."

Vendel had broken pebbles with more integrity than this human's vow.

But at the same time-- Hope niggled at him, as always. If the human did hold to his words, how much could change?

Well, they'd no longer be hunted and harried, huddled refugees always scavenging for resources. The thought was tantalizing, like the perfume of some rare and exotic beverage, hanging in the air.

But could he really trust the lives of his people to the word of a man who'd broken so much already?

"Gumm-Gumms," he pointed out, "are terrifying warriors. While we are but humble gravel miners. How, exactly, do you expect us to ever defeat Gunmar?" Because he had no doubt that a good part of Arthur's plan was to use his people as expendable bait. And that, Vendel could not allow.

"We will give you a secret weapon," promised the king.

Another promise. This conversation seemed to be made of nothing but them. "What weapon?" Vendel demanded. "If you had one, you would have already used it against us!"

There, the king's confidence finally faltered; his face fell. He shifted to the side, turning to look at the wizard, clad in dark armor, who had trailed him through Dwoza. "Merlin?" he asked, sounding suddenly unsure.

The wizard sniffed. "That armor," he said pointedly, "was meant for you, my king."

"We must give something," the king told the wizard. "And I have armor." He patted the shining chest plate he wore.

Merlin's lips tightened. "The armor was intended to end this war," he said. "Not to be given away as some sort of negotiating tool."

"And that is what it will do," the king said. "Can you think of a better way to end this war against Gunmar?" His lips tightened. "Against Morgana, and her masters?"

The wizard clearly didn't like it, but after a moment shook his head in agreement. "I cannot. But, Arthur--" His hand rested on the king's shoulder. "Against those who have resurrected her... I cannot protect you. Excalibur cannot protect you."

"Thus why we seek an alliance," the king replied, his hand covering the wizard's. "I have long had faith in you, old friend; have faith in me."

His words won a small smile. "Always, my king," the wizard vowed.

"This is all very touching," Vendel broke in, "but one set of armor?" He sniffed. "We are many, and you ask us all to risk our lives."

"The armor," Merlin said, his hand falling from the king's shoulder as he glared at Vendel, "will choose one among you to become a great warrior; the one best suited to the task of defending others from the forces of evil, and darkness."

The small human female tensed at the spite in that last word. The strange blue troll who stood behind her put a hand on her shoulder; she covered it with her own, relaxing as she smiled up at him.

Merlin did not miss the interaction, and fixed the two of them with a gimlet stare as he continued speaking. "And that chosen one will--"

His words were cut off, drowned under the sound of a pounding at the gate. The thick stone boomed. The tremor sent dust and pebbles raining down across the main cavern.

"What in Gorgus' name--" demanded Blinkous Galadrigal.

"Oh no," said the blue stranger, who had moved automatically to shelter the small human in the embrace of his arms.

"Wait, Jim, is this--"

A second boom. Cracks spread across the stone slab's surface. Screams broke out, Bagdwella's particularly shrill. "They've come for us!" she shrieked, though it was not clear who she meant. Dwoza had so many enemies.

One more boom, and the barrier crumbled like clay. Bounding in atop the debris came an emerald and armor nightmare. "Aaarrrgghh bring message," the Gumm-Gumm general growled. "Join Gunmar, or die."

It seemed Douxie was right about the timeline trying to heal itself, Jim thought. Because here was Aaarrrgghh, pounding his way into Dwoza again, bringing Gunmar's demands.

But if the timeline was trying to heal itself, Jim thought, it had terrible timing. Because--

"Fell beast," King Arthur growled, his eyes narrowed as he drew Excalibur.

Aaarrrgghh growled, but otherwise ignored him, his beetle-black gaze narrowing in on.... "Witch," he grated, and leapt.

Claire eeped and drew darkness around herself, vanishing just as Aaarrrgghh would have crashed into her.

"It is the end times!" Blinky wailed. "Flee, we must flee!" And matching action to word, he ran in the same direction as the screaming crowd.

"Come on." Jim snagged Deya out of the hysterical troll mass.

"You want me to go up against him?!" she demanded, gesturing at Aaarrrgghh. "No thanks!"

"It's either you and me, or we leave him to Arthur," Jim snapped. The medieval king had already swung; his blade skittered down Aaarrrgghh's vambrace, throwing sparks. "Do you really want to see more blood on the floor?"

"If it's Arthur's?" she asked. "I'm fine with that."

"And if it's stone dust?" Jim asked.

The hesitation on her face spoke volumes.

"Come on," he said, hauling the future Trollhunter into battle.

Merlin's eye was twitching as Claire reappeared next to him. He raised his staff, presumably to fire off some sort of energy blast.

"Don't," Claire told him.

"But the king is being threatened," the wizard protested, glaring.

"The king is putting himself in danger," she retorted. "You can't interfere with this."

Merlin's hand twitched. "If I had my Time Map," he said, "I could confirm your words. Unfortunately, as Hisirdoux still has it in his possession--" He raised his staff again.

With no compunction whatsoever, Claire swept shadows over the master wizard, dumping him into the shadow realm to cool his heels. Merlin had no talent with shadow magic, so he wouldn't be getting out of there on his own. "Mess up my timeline, will you?" she muttered, then turned to see what difference she could make.

"Join Skullcrusher!" the big brute demanded, shrugging off Arthur and sending him flying. "Or I crush skulls!" Which certainly did not sound like Blinkous' idea of a good time. Still, he peeped out from his hiding place, wanting, needing to know what was happening.

"We're not joining Gunmar," the blue stranger--Jim--said with a slash of his hand. "Not now, not ever!"

Deya wrinkled up her face. "Yeah, the benefits weren't so great last time," she muttered.

"Then die!" growled the brute, running and jumping at the mouthy pair. He swatted Deya into the wall like she was nothing more than an errant gnome, before turning his ire on Jim.

Blinky watched wide-eyed as the blue youth leapt and dodged, nimbly avoiding each hit. "My word," he muttered. "The boy must be a fantastic dancer!"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" asked a voice behind him. Blinky yelped, spinning to see the shadow witch stepping out of a swirl of inky darkness. She stepped closer to him, peering out past the barrels that barricaded their position. "Sadly, Jim's never got beyond the 'stand in one place and sway' technique."

"A pity," said Blinky.

She flashed a smile up at him. "It really is."

He hesitated. But the thing was, Blinkous had been hatched curious, so he couldn't really stop himself from inquiring. "Should you not be out there helping?"

The slim maiden arched an eyebrow at him. "Shouldn't you?"

The thing about fighting Aaarrrgghh was, he'd trained Jim. So while this version of his mentor was, hands down, a thousand times more rage filled than the one Jim knew and loved, his moves were, at least to Jim's eye, telegraphed well ahead of time. He knew how Aaarrrgghh fought, even when the motives behind the moves were different. Keeping up, keeping ahead of him was like a game by now.

(Blinky had called Jim a grasshopper once.)

Even once Deya, having gotten her hands on a mace, entered the fray, it wasn't hard.

Or at least it wasn't until Arthur, having struggled to his feet, leapt at Aaarrrgghh's unshielded back, murder in his eyes and sword in his hand.

"No!" cried Jim, freezing just long enough that Aaarrrgghh grabbed hold of one of Jim's legs and bashed him into the ground, chest first.

In a white hot blaze of pain, the shard of Gaylen's Core drove farther into the Time Stone.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Good Things Come In Threes 1/?

sakon76 — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 03:52:34 GMT

Good Things Come In Threes
by K. Stonham
first released November 22nd, 2024

Douxie leaned back against the sun-warmed merlon, closing his eyes and breathing out smoke. The stone was warm beneath him, the air cold around him, and the wind took the smoke and the ash and whirled them all away. He lifted the cigarette to his lips and took another drag; it went in like dragon's fire and went out tasting like cloves, reminding him of incense and patchouli, of silk drapes and mysticism, of telling fortunes and spinning spells. Camelot had to be thousands of feet in the air to hide in the clouds the way it did, but he had no trouble breathing here. The tower was well within the bubble of spells that kept the air at sea level density. Merlin had been no fool, had flown above the clouds himself to determine the conditions there, and ensorcelled the castle accordingly.

Douxie wondered how far in advance Merlin had known that his castle would eventually join the sky. He supposed he'd never get the chance to find out now.

Regardless, the spells had held; Douxie had checked and double checked them all, with Archie acting as a second set of eyes, and, amazingly, they were holding fine. Even though Camelot was now held together by spit, baling wire, and ~~alien~~ Akiridion technology, Merlin's spells held.

Douxie would never be that good at spellcraft.

But he had other strengths, and they'd kept them all safe so far.

He heard his company before he saw them, the creak of the grate in the tower floor alerting him to open his eyes. Claire and Jim climbed out of the stairwell, both of them jacket-clad to fend off the windchill of the heights.

"'Allo," Douxie greeted them with a salute.

Claire shivered in her jacket as she came closer. "It's cold up here," she complained.

Douxie grinned and unfolded himself. "You should try Wales in winter," he said. "Sometimes the wind funnels down the hills and goes right through you without stopping. Feels like there's nothing between you and the North Pole but the odd passing reindeer."

Her expression went skeptical and her gaze latched onto his cigarette. "You're up here smoking to keep warm," she accused.

Douxie's grin widened, delighted to have been caught. "Guilty," he admitted. "Want a try?"

Claire was hesitant, but shrugged after a second and reached for his cigarette. He let her take it, watched as she took an inexperienced drag, then started coughing. "Ugh," Claire complained, handing it back. "How do you do that?"

"Long practice," Douxie told her. "Also, a complete inability to be affected by it." He didn't blame her for being cold up here. She had safety pins threaded through her denim jacket, but under her short skirt her tights were fishnets. While he approved on general principal, it wasn't really the warmest choice of clothing.

The first time he'd met her, he'd sized Claire up as a baby punk, wanting desperately to rebel against her stifling life, but unable to run the risk of being turned out of her home. The intervening time had done little to dispel that impression: she wore studded denim and fishnets but didn't dare shred them or wear a pair with holes. She had her band shirts and the dyed streak in her hair (though he knew it to now be the effect of magic overexposure, not a bottle of bleach) but couldn't risk piercing anything more than her standard pair of earrings. And she was still too young for any reputable tattoo parlor to accept her as a client.

She was one part good girl, one part anything but this. Shadowmancy, he thought, might be helping to fill the hole in her that screamed for freedom, for difference, but he didn't know if that would be enough for her, or if she'd go further the way he had. Either way, she was smart, and brilliant, and managed to make Douxie laugh with her tart observations.

Jim arched his eyebrows. "Inability to be affected?" he asked.

And Douxie, oddly, liked Jim. Which he really hadn't expected. Jim was straight laced, practically a poster boy for the type of people who looked at Douxie and wanted him to be unmade. Jim wore neat clothes, combed his hair tidily, and rode a Vespa with his helmet on. He was nice, and nice people didn't like Douxie.

Jim was also the Trollhunter, with a spine of fucking adamant. He had spent months as an uncanny being caught between two species, eventually adjusting to the change with a grace that would make even a seasoned shapeshifter like Archie proud. He'd fought, and he'd sweated, and he'd bled, and in the end he was as far from a typical seventeen-year-old boy as he could be. The scar that stretched from one cheek, across his nose, and cut through the opposing eyebrow, was testament to this. He might not be worthy of Excalibur yet... but Douxie had absolutely no doubt that he would be.

Plus he was an amazing chef who utterly blew away Benoit's best.

Douxie shrugged. "One of the perks of immortality. You won't get old, you don't get sick, you definitely can't get lung cancer." He took one more inhale off the cig, relishing the taste of cloves on his tongue, before stubbing it out against the stone wall. "So. What may I do for you?"

The teenagers exchanged a look, and Douxie smiled, waiting. It was clear they'd come looking for him for some reason. He just didn't know what it was yet.

It was a long minute before Claire finally opened her mouth and asked, "Will you have sex with us?"

Douxie blinked, almost sure he'd misheard her. But he hadn't, and she and Jim looked so awkward about the request....

"Well," he said, "I have to admit, that wasn't even remotely on my list of guesses."

They ended up going back inside for what Jim was sure was going to be an incredibly uncomfortable conversation. He almost bit his lip and backtracked his way out of it even as Claire opened a shadow portal to her bedroom on the castle.

"All right," Douxie said, once they'd all gotten their shoes off and were sitting cross-legged on Claire's bed. "Walk me through this, because from where I am, this is coming out of the blue. Thought you two were happy together, and you don't have the vibe of swingers...?"

"We're not," Jim said immediately, earning an arched (pierced) eyebrow.

"Then why are you asking me?" Douxie asked, which was a fair question.

Jim went red and Claire squirmed.

Douxie sighed. "Right," he said. "Rule one: if you're not able to talk about something, you probably shouldn't be having it." He made to get off the bed.

"Wait!" Jim reached out for him.

Douxie paused. Settled back down. Waited.

Jim breathed out, trying to find words. "You're only a couple years older than us," he said. "But you're also over nine hundred years older than us. So you've been around a long time, tried lots of things. I assume."

"That I have." Douxie's voice was studiously neutral.

"I--" Jim's throat closed up.

Claire took pity on him and continued. "Um, so, we've been having sex. Which my parents are never allowed to know about," she admonished.

Douxie held up fingers. "I shan't say a word. Scout's honor."

"You were never a Boy Scout," Jim accused.

Douxie laughed. The sound was light and amused. "True," he said. "I leave that honor to you."

"I was never a Boy Scout either," Jim told him.

Douxie's eyebrows bounced up. "That does surprise me," he said. "Regardless, continue," he invited Claire.

"So. Um. It's okay," Claire said, with a glance at Jim, who nodded. They both came, so that was good. But.... "But there's got to be something more, right?" she asked Douxie. "Something more like the stuff in romance novels."

"Ah." The wizard nodded sagely. "The toe-curling, fireworks-going-off, I-thought-there-was-an-earthquake stuff? Absolute best orgasm ever, every single time?"

"You sound like you're familiar with the genre," Jim accused.

Douxie smirked. "I read a lot. And I may edit some of Archie's work."

Claire's eyes widened. "Wait, Archie-- No," she interrupted herself. "Off topic."

Douxie just grinned.

"But there is sex like that, right?" she asked Douxie.

Who sighed and leaned back on his hands. "Really fantastic sex? Certainly. Doesn't happen every time, no matter what the books want to tell you. But there's certainly a hell of a lot of shades beyond bland and boring."

"You've had a lot of sex, right?" Jim asked, leaning forward.

Douxie had a smile hovering around his mouth as he looked directly at Jim and said, "Darling, I've fucked my way around the planet. I've got nine centuries of sex under my belt. Well," he amended, looking thoughtful, "eight."

"Eight?" Claire asked.

Douxie shrugged. "Turns out that, like a surfeit of sweets, you can get tired even of pleasure. Took a century's break from debauchery in the mid eighteen hundreds."

The idea of eight centuries of sex was blowing Jim's mind. "And you never had any kids from all that...?"

Douxie shrugged again. "I'm sterile. Most immortals are." He sounded unbothered. But then, Jim guessed, he'd had nine hundred years to get used to it. "It's a base energy trade: fecundity for longevity."

"Will you teach us? Or, you know, help us figure out what we're doing wrong?" Claire asked.

"You're asking me?" Douxie demanded, with accompanying gesticulation. "Claire, the two of you have the whole internet at your hands, if you don't want to risk walking into a sex shop!"

"You want us to learn about sex from the internet?" Jim asked. "We looked!"

Douxie paused, mouth open as he clearly considered that. "All right, fair. The internet is indeed a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Nonetheless, I'm amazed that your next logical step of progression is inviting someone into a threesome. That's not usually how these things work."

"What is the usual way these things work?" asked Jim.

"Trial and error," Douxie said flatly.

"Well, that sucks," Claire said. "I'm pretty sure there's something to be said about using efficiency and resource management to improve things."

Douxie laughed. "Oh, and I'm a resource, am I?" His smile lingered, lazy and unoffended. He looked at Jim. "Have to say, most blokes would be a bit touchier about inviting another fellow in on things."

Jim's face felt like it was on fire. "I'm... not sure I'm straight," he admitted.

Douxie's eyebrows shot up, and he regarded Jim with astonishment for a minute. "Huh," he murmured eventually. "I must stop being surprised by you, Jim."

Jim bristled. "What's that mean?"

Douxie gestured to all of him with one hand. "From where I'm sitting, you look very straight."

"And you look very not," Jim shot back.

Douxie grinned. "After nine hundred years? I'm everything, Jim."

"You're certainly something," Jim muttered.

Douxie breathed, amused. "So it's not just that you two want help figuring out really good sex, then, is it? You want your first kiss from a boy."

"I'm reconsidering this," Jim announced.

"No you're not," Douxie and Claire said as one. They looked at each other and laughed.

Jim glowered.

"All right, no teasing," Douxie finally allowed. "But seriously... you and Toby never practiced kissing with one another?"

"Eww." The thought of kissing Toby was rank in Jim's throat. "No. Toby's like my brother."

Douxie shrugged. "Sorry, no offense. I've never had a brother."

Jim looked at him with all the cynicism he could muster. "Archie," he said flatly.

"That's not the same," Douxie said, "but I take your point." He looked at Claire. "And are you all right with this, love? All right with me kissing your boyfriend?"

Claire shrugged. "Go for it."

"As you will." Douxie shifted over, until he was right in front of Jim. "Sure you want me to be your first gay kiss, Jim?"

This close up, Jim could see the details of Douxie's makeup, the thick eyeliner surrounding his eyes. And he didn't know if Douxie was wearing mascara, but if he wasn't, his eyelashes were utterly wasted on a boy. Or they would be if the boy wasn't Douxie. He smelled of cloves and some sort of aftershave, but Jim didn't know what kind. Suddenly struck dumb, he nodded.

"Well, then." Douxie crossed the distance between them, and his lips were soft and dry on Jim's.

It was just a few seconds, then Douxie drew back. He chuckled and shook his head. "Close your eyes, Jim," he instructed, thumb drawing a gentle line down Jim's cheek. "Stop thinking for a minute."

Jim obeyed, and Douxie's lips came back.

It was easier to relax into it now, somehow. Douxie's mouth moved against his, and Jim's moved back, responding. A touch of tongue against his lips and he opened them, and--

Oh.

He and Claire definitely hadn't done this.

Holy fuck.

Jim felt himself being borne back, laid down on the bed, surrounded by a halo of cloves and spice, Douxie kissing him for all he was worth, until finally the older teen pulled back. Lightened up. Returned it to just lips moving against one another and then, with a peck, pulled away.

Jim opened his eyes.

Douxie looked down at him, somehow smug despite not even smiling. "Going to have a gay panic now?" he murmured.

Jim considered it. "No," he finally said.

"Good. Because you really are not straight." Douxie shifted, and Jim realized his leg was planted between Jim's, his thigh pressing against Jim's... erection.

Jim's face caught on fire.

Douxie laughed. "Welcome to being queer," he said, not unkindly.

"I didn't even like you when I met you," Jim confessed.

"Believe me," Douxie said with a smile, "you made that abundantly clear." He backed off, sitting up, and offered Jim a hand. Jim accepted it, straightening and trying to surreptitiously adjust himself.

Claire snickered.

What the hell, they were in her bed, talking about sex. Jim gave up on discretion.

Claire watched as Douxie eased Jim back down onto the bed, and had to admit to herself, okay, that's a little hot.

Maybe more than just a little, in fact.

Because Jim made her heart beat fast, and Douxie was almost too pretty to be a boy, no matter how he tried to toughen things up with all the piercings in his ears and eyebrow, and the tattoos they all knew he had because they peeked out from his shirtsleeves and over the collar of his tank tops.

Jim was melted by the time Douxie was done kissing him, and Claire knew they'd asked the right person. Douxie wasn't laughing at Jim for not being sure if he was actually bi, wasn't being mean at all--

In fact, despite how he dressed and carried himself like someone who had at least three knives on him at all times (and, Claire had learned, Douxie did in fact have at least three knives on him at any time), he was possibly the kindest person she'd ever met.

Which was part of what she loved about the punk scene. Everyone outside it judged them by what they wore and the music they listened to, the anger and rebellion they expressed... but inside that culture, she'd found some of the most caring people she'd ever met. Certainly ones who'd understood her better than her mother. People who had looked at Claire and seen her, not some cutout figure of what they thought she should be. They'd been happy to share new music with her. Happy to recommend makeup brands and where to get good stockings. Happy to teach her how to bleach and dye her hair, back when her hair would still take dye.

Happy to let her be herself, no matter who that was.

Wait a second....

As Jim sat back upright, she eyed Douxie's hair. "Did you dye your hair again?" she asked. Because it looked like there was more blue now than the last time he, Archie, and Nari had managed a visit to the castle.

Douxie blinked. Then snickered. His fingers feathered through his own bangs. "This isn't hair dye any more than your white is, Claire."

"It's not?" She felt dumb.

Douxie shrugged. "Color changes are a sign of magical overexertion. And, yes, dodging and bamboozling the Arcane Order's taking a fair amount."

"I thought your hair was dyed," Jim said, sounding surprised.

"Most people do." He fell silent.

Claire eyed him. "Doux-ie," she wheedled, trying to get the story out of him. "When did your hair start changing color?"

He huffed a sigh. "Fine. The thing about living a long time? People ask you where you were for certain events. A pretty popular one's 'were you on the Titanic'?"

Claire went absolutely still. She swallowed. "Were you?" she asked.

Douxie shook his head. "I wasn't." He met her eyes. "I was on the Carpathia."

Which meant little to her, but Jim's eyes went wide. "The rescue ship."

"Just so." Douxie's mouth formed a line. "I'd been working as a stoker, but I was really there to deal with a nasty little infestation of nimwraiths. Archie was a ratter. When the captain changed course and word came down about why... well, all speed was wanted. That night I shoved as much magic as I could into the boiler to get us there faster. With all the coal dust, I didn't even realize my hair'd gone blue until after we'd hit New York."

"I would have thought you'd be a passenger. Or, you know, a waiter or something," Jim said awkwardly.

Douxie shrugged. "I wasn't nearly high class enough to be a waiter. Wrong accent. As for being a passenger... I think Hollywood's led you to the wrong impression of immortality. Wizardry doesn't pay shit."

Claire wet her lips. "So that's why you didn't change your hair color, when we were in the past."

Douxie nodded. "I could hide all this," he said, gesturing at his tattoos and piercings. "But signs of magical change? Simply impossible."

"Wait, so why does your hair go blue and Claire's white?" Jim asked. "You've both got black hair."

Douxie spread his hands. "Your guess," he said, "is as good as mine. Zoe," he said with weight, "believe it or not, used to have brown hair. Handling lightning's a high-powered bitch."

Author's Note: I am working on the next chapter of Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet, but it's been an uphill struggle. I've finally managed to get it one scene from being ready. But today I happened to notice this set of files in my drafts folder, sitting there apparently untouched since March of 2023. So I read them over and realized they weren't too bad, did a bit of tweaking, and this first chapter at least is now ready to be seen by others. Nothing explicit happened herein, but when I get to the next part, it will earn an Explicit rating, so I'm preemptively setting the story at that.

As for where this came from... my notes to myself: "Someday I'll write about the boy who wears makeup and black nail polish, who has actual non-magic tattoos and more piercings than is generally considered polite, who smokes and drinks and wears ripped denim and ripped fishnets and says fuck it to all my ideas of conventionality, yet still tries so hard and bleeds so much, trying to save the world and the people who matter most to him. That particular kind of anger is hard for me to write, so I should do it."

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 179/?

sakon76 — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 14:53:24 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 8th November, 2024

Gunmar was displeased. Not that this was such an unusual state of affairs; there was much, General Aaarrrgghh thought, for the Skullcrusher to be displeased about. Chief of which was the continued existence of Camelot and its king and knights' insistence on harrying Gunmar's army.

At the moment, Camelot was burning. Which ought to have been a good thing.

But that too displeased Gunmar, as it had not been done on his orders. Aaarrrgghh could see the sense in Gunmar's ire. It meant there was a new player on the field, one who might be yet another enemy.

Or, as it turned out... someone with an offer of alliance.

She swooped in golden and green, glowing with a power that had Aaarrrgghh shying away. A witch. Another human witch. He had little fondness for them, given his memories of the one who had singed him with pink lightning some moons ago in the Wild Woods - let alone that purple-tinged one who had stolen half of Gunmar's army, not to mention himself, not a night past.

Witches were not to be trusted.

So he was wary.

But her words were silken, her confidence unshakable. Gunmar was beguiled.

Oh, not by magic - or at least Aaarrrgghh didn't think so. No, instead it was the promise of an ally equal in strength and drive that lured him.

The promise of an ally who despised Arthur as much as he did.

Aaarrrgghh glanced at Bular. But there he saw no ally; the Skullcrusher's son was just as entranced as his father, by words and promises that Aaarrrgghh did not trust.

Still, he needed to speak. If there was a chance that the witch might betray them, someone needed to be ready and alert against it.

"Skullcrusher," Aaarrrgghh rumbled. "Be wary of witches."

The burning gaze that turned on him showed that he was heard. That Gunmar valued his words. Aaarrrgghh was the recipient of a dark smile. "Always looking out for me, old friend."

He bowed his head, never taking his eyes off the glowing figure of the witch. "Always."

Gunmar glanced at the witch, his gaze calculating. The smile grew into a toothy grin. "War comes, General. Go tell the Dwoza trolls it's time to pick a side."

Aaarrrgghh nodded. "Yes, Skullcrusher."

"And if it isn't ours... kill them all."

Aaarrrgghh felt his pupils widen at the thought. Unchecked violence, doing away with all their enemies. It was a bribe, a reward for his vigilance - but nonetheless it would be a good thing. To cleanse out all the weaklings who would not stand and fight with them. "With pleasure," he growled.

The damage was immense. As evening set in over Camelot, what had been a day of feasting and revelry turned to a night of loss and lament. Torches - and the wizards' magical orbs of light - cast their illumination over toppled buildings, crushed forms, wrecked lives. The survivors sought safety in undamaged structures. Galahad could hear the sobs and wails - and far too rarely, cries of joy as someone believed dead straggled in to find friends and family. The castle's lesser hall had been turned into an infirmary, and was packed full of the injured.

"'Tis as much as we can do tonight, my king," he reported to Arthur near the witching hour. The king stood in his throne room, taking reports from his men. And no small number of those, too, were dead, crushed by falling stone and timber. "We must wait until the safety of dawn's light to assess and search for more survivors."

The king's face was drawn, etched with lines that Galahad would have sworn hadn't been there a day earlier. But it was late, and the torches, magical though they were, cast strange shadows upon men. He dearly wished for a barrel of ale - or something stronger. But he would stand his post and do his duty for so long as his king needed him.

"So many gone," Arthur lamented. "And for what? Morgana's vengeance upon me." Something dark passed over his expression. "Better that I had let her slay me, than to have Camelot destroyed."

"My king--" Galahad protested.

"What, and hand her everything she desired?" a new voice broke in. Galahad turned to see Merlin crossing the Round Table, set flush as it was into the floor. "No." The wizard shook his head. "Better that she had stayed dead. I fear, my king, that dark forces are at work and have resurrected her from a peaceful grave."

"Tell us something we don't know," muttered the apprentice who followed him. A sharp gesture from Merlin drew up the boy's spine and clearly shut his mouth for fear of repercussions.

Arthur's gaze narrowed in on the saucy-mouthed chit. "Tell me, boy. Why were there two of you earlier?"

The boy's eyes grew wide; his mouth opened.

"A magical accident," Merlin cut in. "Hopefully soon to be remedied," he added pointedly, glaring at his apprentice.

The apprentice glared back. "It's not up to me," he rejoined, his tone just as pointed as his master's.

Galahad felt his eyebrows bounce; this was new. The boy had never dared gainsay his teacher before. He wasn't sure he liked the flavor of this insubordination.

Merlin, however, merely sniffed and turned his attention back to the king. "Hisirdoux and his double are of no consequence," he said, earning a soft "Hey!" of protest from the boy. "What matters," Merlin continued, ignoring the interjection, "is the safety of Camelot."

Arthur nodded. "In that, we are in agreement, old friend."

"The news is dire," Merlin continued. "The town, and parts of the castle itself are in shambles. Our forces are reduced; our defenses, lowered. We need allies in the war to come." His face darkened. "The war against Morgana."

"Not just Morgana," his apprentice said softly. Merlin turned to look at him. The boy fiddled with his leather bracelets for a moment before looking up. "You said something had resurrected her," he reminded his master, finally meeting Merlin's eyes. "Something more powerful than her. The war... wouldn't it be against them?"

Several flavors of astonishment washed across Merlin's face. After a moment, he nodded. "We need allies, my king," he repeated, turning back to Arthur.

"Our enemies are many," said Arthur thoughtfully. "We have always faced them alone. But now... I am a king with but half an army," he stated, looking to Galahad for confirmation. Galahad nodded. He wished it were not so, but sad truth compelled him to agree with his king's assessment. "And Princess Aja, even assuming she agrees to an alliance... her people, she has said, are too far away to provide assistance to ours."

There was a long bitter moment of silence in the throne room before Merlin turned back to his apprentice. "Well, Hisirdoux?" he asked. "Doubling your presence seems to have doubled your brains. Have you any insight?"

The boy grimaced at Merlin's sharp tone, but reluctantly nodded. "We must go to the good trolls."

Arthur's eyes met Galahad's again. It was plain that neither of them liked this plan of the boy wizard's, but....

But the begrudging truth of the evening made it clear there were no other options.

The trolls it would have to be.

Blinkous stared, aghast. "What do you mean, you cannot read?" he demanded, volume a touch louder than was perhaps wise.

The green female troll crossed her arms and glared. "What I said."

"But-- but--" he stuttered.

The slim armored troll who had come into the Galadrigal brothers' humble library with her rested hands on her shoulders. "She's been locked up under Camelot for most of her life, Blinky," he said gently. "It's not like she's had anyone to teach her." His blue eyes were light; his tone, leading.

Blinky understood the implication without question.

"My dear lady," he said, seizing one of her hands between his own. "It would be my pleasure - no, my honor - to introduce you to the world of literacy!"

She scowled. "I dunno...."

"Hey." The armored troll, whose name Blinkous had yet to catch, patted her on the shoulder. "It's a skill, right? Once you have it, you can choose to use it or not. But until you do have it, there's whole worlds you're missing out on. And he's a good teacher."

"I am?" asked Blinkous. Then, at the green troll's glare, "I am!" he declared, puffing out his chest.

She glowered for a few seconds, then let out a huff. "Fine. All right. I'll learn."

"Oh, excellent!" Blinkous crowed. "Please, allow me... ah, may I have your name?" he finally thought to inquire.

She hesitated. Then, "Deya," she said.

The armored troll smiled.

Hisirdoux stared at the wreckage of Merlin's workshop, aghast.

"Oh dear," remarked Archie by his side, adjusting his glasses.

"Those blasts were contained, but still... this!" Hisirdoux gibbered, taking it all in. Or at least trying to.

His elder self's wards had contained the damage to the structure of the tower, which was surely some kind of miracle when Hisirdoux thought about it, given the wreckage he'd seen in the rest of Camelot, but.... Merlin's possessions were thrown about. The floor was littered with books and magical knickknacks. Shattered crystals ground underneath Hisirdoux's foot as he shifted his weight, and he shuddered at both the sensation and the implications. Because Merlin's belongings were valuable and he wasn't to touch them and now they were destroyed--

Well, not all of them. Most of the books didn't look so much as charred, and despite the evidence of the smashed crystals, Merlin kept all the really valuable stuff in his safe, so that, presumably, would be all right....

"At least he can't lay the blame at our feet," mused Archie. He sprouted wings in a poof of fiery draconic magic and took to the air, surveying the wreckage. "This time."

"This will take hours to clean up," Hisirdoux moaned.

Archie landed on the worktable, miraculously still in place. His tail curled around his feet. "Well. Best to get started, then."

Hisirdoux groaned, but held up his hand nonetheless.

Lined with blue light, the broom flew to it.

As always, he started cleaning.

"Ugh, this is not usefully organized!" Krel groused as the four of them searched high and low for Gems and Geodes volume twenty-three. A stack was collecting in the middle of the cave of all the other volumes of Gems and Geodes as they came across them - but no number twenty-three.

Yet. He had to hope to Seklos that it was no volume twenty-three yet because his other option for finding the information he needed to go along with Jim's plan was probably Merlin and Krel didn't trust himself not to make cutting remarks to the elder wizard. Ones that would probably break the timeline. More than it already was broken, anyway. And unlike Douxie, Krel did not know the spell to erase memories.

On the other side of the cavern, Toby sighed happily. "Yeah, it's just like being back home, isn't it?"

Krel turned, brandishing another useless book at him. "I cannot wait for trolls to discover the art of categorization and useful information filing techniques!"

"Hey, just because not all of us can learn through your cosmic osmosis thing--"

"It is thermogenic cosmosis," Krel snapped. "And it is vastly superior."

"Question," said Toby, raising a hand and a point, "if it's so much better and you both had to go through it, how come you know so much more than Aja?"

"Because I was interested!" Krel fumed. "Not that it ever mattered to my parents. But... if you know how things work, then you can figure out how to fix them when they are broken." He looked at the volume he held. It was a primitive method of recording and passing on information. But he had to admit it had weight, satisfying in his hand and perhaps nicely signifying the importance of the knowledge inside. Or maybe not. Even magical creatures had to have junk data. Krel took a breath, letting his frustration fade. "If I only knew enough, I could keep everyone from getting hurt," he said quietly.

"Hey." Toby had crossed the room and put a hand on Krel's shoulder. "You know we're going home safe, right?" his friend asked.

Krel thought of everything they had left behind. Everyone they had left behind. A whole universe that might be erased if they did the wrong thing. And much though he would love for Val Morando to be erased.... Mama. Papa. Mother. Even Luug.

His core felt cold.

He was afraid.

What if they did the wrong thing, and there was no home left to go back to?

"Dude." Toby's armored fingers tightened on Krel's shoulder. "Does being a wizard mean having panic attacks? Because you're looking kinda like Douxie does when he ties himself up in knots."

"I do not get 'panic attacks'," Krel retorted. "The biological mechanism that causes them is physically impossible for me."

"Biology means bupkis," Toby informed him. "Trolls and humans are completely different from one another, and you know what? It doesn't matter. So don't try to tell me that Akiridions - or Stuart! - are so much different either." His voice softened. "You holding up okay, Krel? I mean, doing stuff to heartstones is kind of big. I'd be shook too."

"It is not the heartstone." Krel shook his head. "That is a simple problem of applied physics - and applied magic. It is...." He drew a breath. "What if we can never go home?" he asked quietly. "If we destroy the timeline by accident...."

"Huh." Toby considered that. "Well, Jimbo and co. have already done this trip once before, and not borked it. So we've got pretty good odds. Plus I think Douxie said something once about the timeline prefers to heal itself. So hopefully we'll just get ejected like... I dunno, kidney stones or something... and go back to our normal business back home. Defeating tyrants and murderous gods. You know, the usual."

Krel cracked a smile. "The usual," he agreed.

"Oh, haha!" A few meters away, Dictatious popped up from his perusal of the lowest shelves, a tome held in either of his top hands. "Volume twenty-two," he pronounced, "and volume twenty-three!" He brandished it with glee.

"Well," said Krel, exchanging a look with Toby, "time to get to work, I suppose."

"We go now," said Arthur, standing.

"My liege!" protested Lancelot. "It is the middle of the night. Your men are wounded. We have not enough hale-bodied souls to make an appropriate honor guard--"

He ignored his best knight. "I need no honor guard." Arthur felt his face shift as his new political position became clear. "I go to beg for aid, from those I have treated as enemies." Treated most shamefully, a voice in the back of his head whispered. It spoke with Morgana's voice. With Gwen's. For once, he did not ignore it. "I must speak on bended knee - as a supplicant, not as a king."

The expressions of shock on Lancelot's face, on Galahad's, said it all.

But Arthur swallowed his pride. He hadn't always been a king, nor even a prince, and it was that history of being helpless, unwanted, that he drew on now. This is for Camelot. I must preserve her. If I do nothing else, let me do that.

"My liege," spoke Merlin, drawing his attention. "Dwoza is hidden. We do not know the way."

His apprentice, standing to the side of the master wizard, cringed, drawing Merlin's attention.

Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, Hisirdoux?"

"Ahh...." The youth looked abashed. Then his shoulders slumped and he looked up to the ceiling, as if asking for divine aid. "Fuzzbuckets," he said. "Claire?"

Arthur didn't jump, though Galahad did, when a slender maiden melted out of the shadows behind the columns. "Yeah, Douxie?"

"King Arthur needs a lift to Dwoza," the junior mage told her. "You up to it?"

She smiled and slugged him on the arm. "I'm not the one who spent the afternoon making all those wards that saved the castle's bacon. I'm fine." Her dark eyes were like shadows on the face of the moon as she met Arthur's gaze. He shuddered inwardly, but he held his ground. "I can get you to Jim, who's supposed to be in Dwoza. You're on your own for talking to Vendel, though."

"Impertinence," sniffed Merlin.

"I'm not your apprentice," the girl shot back.

"You're not anybody's apprentice," Merlin's boy murmured.

The girl smirked at him and raised a hand. Darkness swirled into being before her, as black as a room without window or candle. "Well. Shall we?"

Arthur nodded, and stepped forth.

As did Merlin's apprentice - before he was barred by Merlin's staff. "Hisirdoux," barked Merlin. "You stay here."

"But--"

The elder wizard turned a serious expression on him. "Camelot needs a wizard to guard her, against anything... uncanny that Morgana, or her new masters, may send forth. I am entrusting you with this."

The younger wizard looked like he didn't know how to respond to that. After a moment, he sighed, shoulders slumping, and nodded. "I won't let you down."

A brief shoulder squeeze, and Merlin strode beyond him, toward the portal.

"Gentlemen," said the maiden. "Follow me." She led the way into darkness. Arthur and Merlin followed.

Mary stood in the doorway, looking at the long lines of wounded knights and squires who lay on cots or sat against the walls. After King Arthur had left with Claire, Sir Galahad had stumped off to organize a mundane defense of the castle by its remaining able-bodied warriors. But Sir Lancelot had come here and joined Zadra, Darci and Aja as they went around offering firm clasps of fists, hands on shoulders, words of comfort. Mary guessed it was what warriors did for one another. Varvatos, though, mostly just glowered.

Steve had taken one look at some of the injuries (and they were gruesome; Mary could quite clearly see some missing limbs) and turned green. Eli had gone after him when he'd fled. They were probably having their own man-to-man talk somewhere. Medieval ladies (or maybe they were servants; Mary didn't know enough about their clothes to tell the difference) went back and forth between the wounded and other rooms, carrying bandages, pastes, bowls of soup or drink, offering what medical care they could. Which was, Mary was absolutely sure, less than modern medicine could offer.

Less than Douxie's healing magic could offer.

"Shouldn't we... help them?" she asked.

The wizard in question stood beside her, fiddling with his magic bracelet. His lips were pressed together. "I--" he said with a quick glance at the injured. Then he looked away, lips pressed together even tighter. "I can't," he managed. "Don't ask that of me, Mary."

"Why not?" she demanded, hand on her hip. "Isn't 'heal the sick' in your mandate, or whatever?"

Douxie drew a deep breath, then another. He pulled her away from the door, to the other side of a column. They couldn't see the injured anymore; that didn't mean the low sounds of misery stopped. "I am not a doctor," he said lowly. "And despite... I have finite power, Mary," he explained. "And I've wasted so much already. What is more important: those knights in there, or battling Gunmar at Killahead?"

She crossed her arms, unimpressed. "If they were healed, they could fight with us at Killahead."

"Killahead will be a slaughter," he argued. "You'd have me heal them up just to let them get torn apart?"

She'd sat through too many civics classes and too many of Mister Strickler's history lectures to buy that. "One man more to hold the line," she retorted.

He looked pale. Paler than usual, anyway. "Mary...." His voice was almost a whisper. He closed his eyes, shook his head. "I can't," he said. "Not them. Please don't ask that of me."

She shifted her weight, considering. "Why not?" she finally asked.

Douxie looked away. "I've... there are very few bones of my body which have not been broken," he said slowly. "Being a wizard means I heal fast, but... I really hope Barbara never has the opportunity to do an x-ray scan of me, because she would not be happy."

"Uh?"

His eyes met hers. "Who do you think did most of the breaking?" he asked, with a nod toward the infirmary.

Mary's eyes widened. "Wait. The knights of the Round Table?!"

Douxie nodded, a small miserable expression on his face. "The knights whose mandate was to stamp out all magic."

"Those--" Jerks didn't seem a sufficient word. "Those bastards!" Mary whirled, set to dole out retribution or at least a scathing lecture. Static electricity sparked between her fingers.

Douxie's hand caught her arm. "Leave it," he told her. "All they'll see is another witch yelling at them."

"But--"

"But they're all dust, and I'm still alive," he told her solemnly. "Let them take Merlin's painkilling possets and whatever salves and ointments the stillroom has, and forget about them, Mary. You and I need to save our strength for the battle to come."

"Not happy about this," she warned.

It won her a thin smile. "Now you sound like Zoe."

"That's a compliment," Mary informed him.

"Indeed."

"Where is she, anyway?" Mary glanced around, as if her errant pink-haired teacher might suddenly appear. "I know she's mentioned Camelot, so she was here, right?"

"Ah." Douxie's eyes unfocused, as if he was searching for a memory. "I know she was, but my memory is a bit piecemeal around these last few months here, and I know why... I think she's already gone?" He blinked and refocused. "She was one of Morgana's maids until her temper exposed her magic, and I think Morgana helped her make a run for it."

"Oh." Mary deflated. "Too bad. We could have used someone else who could call lightning."

"That was well done, by the by." Douxie nodded. "And regrettably, I don't know where Zoe is now. Arch and I didn't run into her again for another fifty years or so. Over in France - Montpellier, if I recall correctly."

"Was her hair pink then too?"

Douxie laughed and hooked his arm in hers, drawing her gently away from the room of injured jerk knights. "No. The color is very much a modern thing for her. As is the length," he added thoughtfully. "She cut her hair to a flapper bob in the 1920s and has never looked back."

"Ugh, old people," Mary groused by rote.

It won her a smile, which was her goal. "Some day you, too, may be an old person."

She slugged him lightly. "Here's to hoping."

A familiar black portal spun open near Jim. He brightened. Not that listening to Blinky teach wasn't always great (especially when Deya bickered with him about writing), but seeing Claire was better yet.

Unfortunately, the first figure that stepped out of the shadow portal wasn't Claire.

It was Merlin.

Jim's expression immediately morphed into a frown even as Blinky jumped up from his chair, knocking it backwards with a clatter as he shrieked.

Worse, the second person through the portal was Arthur.

Now Jim stood, unable to stop the growl that rumbled low through his throat and chest.

Deya shrieked and flailed as her own personal boogeyman stood before her, his burnished silver armor gleaming in the crystal light.

Jim stepped forward, putting himself between Arthur and the noncombatants. His fingers itched to summon Excalibur - but he couldn't. He couldn't tip off zombie Arthur of the future in any way.

"Please," said the king, his voice low but clear despite the cries of the two trolls. "I am not here as an enemy."

The two trolls were loud and fearful. The third, Arthur recognized. "I can get you to Jim," the witch had said - but he'd seen this cursed troll turned human again. Arthur knew he had, with his own two eyes.

Yet here he was, troll once more, with eyes and face as defiant as they'd been when he'd stepped into sunlight and broken his shackles.

Was the boy human? Troll? Something else entirely? Arthur didn't know what to think.

It didn't matter, he reminded himself. He was here to seek an alliance, not to unravel the mysteries of curses or magic. That was Merlin's job.

Merlin, who was looking quite curiously at the hostile boy-troll, his eyes narrowed and sharp, even as the witch stepped out of the portal and it closed behind them.

"Jim!" she said, face lighting up as she flew to the troll.

His face lost an iota of its glower. "Claire." His arms came easily around her. "What're you--"

"They're here to ask for help," she explained.

He sighed, his eyes rolling skyward. "Of course they are."

"Douxie's holding down the fort," she explained even as the cries of the noisy green troll attracted others from the next room. One of whom quite resembled Princess Aja's other form. Another wore armor that seemed oddly familiar. The third was a troll who clearly took Arthur's presence as a threat, brandishing a broom at him as though it was any sort of useful weapon.

Humility, he reminded himself. I am a supplicant. It grated - he was a king! But for Camelot....

Penitence. And the penitent man kneeled. So Arthur went to one knee, his hands empty, spread for them all to see. "Please," he said. "We need aid."

"Why should we--" the female troll demanded. But the boy troll's hand on her shoulder cut her off.

"Deya," he said, "this is for Vendel to decide."

"He's not going to thank you for bringing him another proposition," she said. "I know his type - all sour and vinegar." She eyed Merlin. "Like others I could name."

It earned her a breath of laughter. "Yeah, probably. But he's the leader here, so this is his problem to deal with."

"Your words," said the other green troll, "are both wise and sage, stranger." He gave Arthur a dubious look - and with six eyes, that was quite a look. "Very well. Get this human out of my library, and let Vendel deal with him. Brother, take them to him."

"But, Dictatious!" the blue troll with six eyes wailed.

"No! I will not be gainsaid, Blinkous. Not when we have just discovered the volume we sought."

"Oh, very well," the blue one grumbled. "Follow me." And he stumped off, leaving them to follow behind.

Arthur followed.

Author's Note: Apologies for the three-week wait. The eight-year-old was sick for two whole weeks; then Wonderful Husband caught it; then I caught it. (I still have the lingering remains.) Add to that losing someone I'd thought a friend when she abruptly decided I was an enemy; making a Toothless costume for the eleven-year-old in thirty-eight hours start to finish; and the whole debacle that was the US election, and here we are. We are all, as they say, going through it right now. I'd hope for quieter times to come, but I have the feeling that hope will not become reality. Buckle up and stay safe.

Deliberate references in this chapter are: Arthur's description of Claire's eyes is an homage to chapter six of inexplicifics' The Witcher story Lost in Meeting Eyes; Douxie and Archie meeting again with Zoe in Montpellier is a tip of the hat to varve's excellent ToA story Take My Hand; and Arthur's line in the last section about the penitent man kneeled is a reference to the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 178/?

sakon76 — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 13:54:50 GMT

Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 18th October, 2024

Watching Krel talk to Vendel was like a masterclass in diplomacy, Jim thought. He knew he couldn't have done half as well, and he was a king!

...Krel was a king too, Jim realized suddenly, in a way he hadn't before. Not just a prince. Not just Aja's little brother. King-in-waiting Krel Tarron of the house of Tarron. Krel had probably been trained for this kind of thing since the moment he started talking.

Oh look, impostor syndrome, Jim thought somewhat nonsensically as it set in how much better at being a king Krel was than him. Krel, who was a literal genius at every field that made up the STEM acronym. Krel, who could and was talking Vendel into hearing them out. Krel, who was smarter than Jim in every possible way....

Because I'm not him, Jim thought, shoving the surge of unworthiness away. Krel didn't want to be a king. He chose to stay on Earth rather than be king of Akiridion-5! And I....

...I do want this. To be a king. To keep his people safe. To keep his planet safe.

Krel was a great friend. Funny, sarcastic, talented, a brother in arms. He was, in many fields, the smartest person Jim was ever going to meet. But he didn't have the deep down grit and fire that Jim and Aja both did, to carve a line in stone, place himself between his people and the darkness, and take down anyone or anything that crossed that line. Instead, Krel was....

Oh. Jim blinked and looked at Krel with new eyes.

Krel was a wizard with a quick mind and a silver tongue when he cared to use it.

If Aja was Jim's analogue on Akiridion-5... Krel was Douxie's.

Did that... did that mean that Krel was supposed to go back to their world whenever Aja became queen this time around? To support her the way Douxie did Jim?

~~The way Merlin had Arthur?~~

Jim swallowed and set his jaw. Later. That was something to think about later, after they'd managed to coerce the Battle of Killahead into going the way it should.

Krel came to what seemed like the end of his sales pitch for why it would be mutually beneficial for trolls and Akiridions/Atlanteans to be able to rely on one another to handle and hide highly dangerous remnants of stolen godhood, to choose a completely random example. Jim resisted the urge to clap, and also to sign Krel up for the debate team at school. He would have been sold on the alliance.

Vendel was less enthusiastic. "No," he said, narrowing his eyes. He gestured around them, at the crowd that had mostly dispersed and gone about their business, the foreigners less novel once the prospect of politics had been added to the mix. "We have no resources to be able to handle any such requests from outsiders."

"No such resources now--" Krel began.

"And no reason to ally ourselves with... strangers," Vendel ran over Krel's words, looking askance as he looked Krel up and down. "You say you are descended from Atlanteans. All very well and good, but where is your proof?"

"Do you doubt the words of the King-in-Waiting?" demanded Varvatos, grinding one fist into the other.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" Toby stepped between Varvatos and Vendel, waving hands, trying to defuse the situation. "No one needs to threaten anyone here! We're just trying to talk things out."

"Varvatos prefers to talk with his fists!"

Jim swallowed. They could not make enemies of Dwoza, or of Vendel. Not if they wanted the future to go smoothly. "What if we gave you something?" he asked, trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between what they wanted and what they needed. "Like a good faith offering?"

"Give us something?" asked Vendel. "Such as what?"

"Yeah, Skinnylegs." Deya crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one side. "I don't think your pal's got enough socks in that bag of his to buy off all Dwoza."

"Uh." Jim's mind spun, coming up with nothing. What did Dwoza need, that they could provide?

Wait - Vendel had been peeved about the sudden influx of refugees, and how that was straining Dwoza's resources.

"Krel," Jim said slowly, coming up with what was either a brilliant idea or something that would sink like a rock. "You remember what you and Douxie did under Camelot?"

"It's kind of hard to forget," Krel said.

"Do you think you could do something like that to a smaller heartstone?" Jim asked. "You know, to strengthen it?"

Krel blinked. "I... do not know." He turned to Toby. "Do you have more information about heartstones?"

"Uhhh." Toby thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Sorry, dude." He knocked at the side of his head. "I gave you all I got in here. We'd need Gems and Geodes volume 23 for more details."

"What was that?" a familiar voice cried. A six-eyed figure pushed through the crowd. "Did I hear someone in need of my books?"

"Dictatious," Jim and Toby said as one.

"Why, yes!" The green troll looked surprised, then pleased. "Dare I assume my reputation has preceded me?"

"Oh, has it ever," Toby muttered. Jim elbowed him.

"Wait, this is Dictatious?" asked Krel. "Blinky's brother?"

"You know my brother?" asked Dictatious even as Jim and Toby both nodded and answered Krel with "Yeah." and "Yup."

"Hmm." One of Krel's hands rested beneath his chin as he considered Dictatious. "I can see the resemblance. In any case, do you have the volume in question?"

Dictatious puffed up, preened. "Why, indeed I am fortunate enough to have the entire collection of Gems and Geodes in my possession! Dare I hope that you, stranger, are a fellow, nay indeed, a brother in the search for knowledge?"

"You could say that," said Krel.

"So." Jim addressed Vendel. "If we can find a way to strengthen the heartstone here, will you be at least willing to hear us out?"

Vendel sniffed. "'If'," he said pointedly. "Then we will talk." And he turned his back to them and stalked off.

"Some things never change," Toby muttered. Then he turned back to Krel and Dictatious. "So! To the library?"

"To the library!" Dictatious cheered.

"I'm outta here," said Deya, turning to go.

Jim grabbed her arm. "Come on," he said, towing her.

"Uh, Jim? I don't know how to read."

"Then no time like the present to learn," he said doggedly.

Sighing, Deya let herself be towed.

Claire winced as one knight's sword failed to slip off the other's pauldron and instead dug in at the shoulder.

Next to her, Darci gritted her teeth, hissing in sympathy. "Please tell me they're wearing chainmail under that."

"I think so?" offered Claire. She didn't have chainmail under her armor, never had - but now it was magical, and had an undersuit like Jim's that was, if not completely impenetrable, at least highly resistant to being cut. "Even if he does, though, that's still going to leave a heck of a bruise."

"I am so glad I am only at squire level," said Darci. "No one's expecting me to participate in this tourney."

"I am so glad I am not going to participate in this tourney," Claire muttered. Because she wasn't. Last time had gone badly enough - she could still taste her overconfidence, the way she'd been so sure the Knight of Skulls was Morgana's planted assassin. Not to mention, of course, how well her sorcery had gone over with Arthur and his knights.

She risked a glance over at that king, who sat in his throne, Aja by his side. The king looked troubled. Aja, on the other hand, was very obviously enjoying the tournament, her eyes fast on the fighters, her fists clenched. "Yes!" she hissed between her teeth as one struck a hit on the other. "Oh, very good."

"I vote we show her wrestling matches when we get home," Mary said sotto voce.

"Oh no. No way," argued Darci.

Claire tuned them out, scanning the crowd. The last time, Morgana's assassin had been the Knight of Skulls' squire - but Douxie had pointed out that could be different this time. That it was possible Morgana hadn't even sent an assassin. Though he'd looked nervous as he said that, so he obviously wasn't sure either.

History was like sand shifting under their feet.

The thing was, though, if anyone wanted to take a shot at Arthur, this was the ideal time to try. He wasn't holed up in his castle or surrounded by knights. And much as Claire wanted him to just die already, she knew this wasn't the right time. He needed to survive to fight Gunmar at Killahead.

And Morgana was sending an assassin. She wanted to kill her baby brother. Claire couldn't keep her mind from skipping back to that fact.

On one hand, it felt fair; Arthur had killed Morgana first.

On the other hand... baby brother.

What would it be like if Enrique grew up to be Arthur? Claire automatically discounted NotEnrique; her adopted brother was a pain in the rear, but the two of them already argued like sparring cats and still had one another's backs; they were solid. But if Enrique grew up to be like Arthur... hating magic. Maybe because it took something from him. Maybe because he didn't have it. Maybe both....

Was it so impossible for people to talk to each other, to find another way?

Arthur, she thought, looking at him, his golden hair shining in the sun, must have been a baby once. A smiling toddler. An adorable child, gaps in his teeth. Morgana must have loved him, and he must have loved her.

Douxie, she knew, blamed Arthur's descent into hating magic on Guinevere's death. And he was probably right; after all, he was the one who had spent years in this court, observing.

She swallowed. What if something took Jim from me?

Something had, once upon a time, if only for a few moments. Or, no - twice. She'd thought him dead when Usurna had had her way and he'd been sentenced to the Deep. Each time, Claire had grieved. It had felt like her heart was torn out of her chest and all she breathed was pain.

If Arthur felt like that, or more... no wonder his mourning had turned to anger. No wonder he wanted to burn the world that no longer contained his love.

I will never be like that, Claire vowed to herself. Not like him, not like Morgana. I don't care who I lose. I will never become like them.

She jerked her head up at the sound of applause.

Out in the arena, Archie had just burned a gnome to a crisp. Claire grimaced, thinking of Chompsky.

"Not bad for a winged pest," Arthur said, smiling and clapping.

"Barbaric," someone muttered. Aja. Who wasn't smiling and clapping.

"It is not our way," Zadra counseled, leaning low over Aja's shoulder.

"To make sentient beings murder one another for entertainment--" Aja growled. "At least skeltegs are mere animals. That--" The look she cast at the arena was full of scorn.

"Hey." Mary touched Aja's hand, drawing her attention. "Not our time. Not our place." Mary cast a brief look at the arena. Her expression twisted into a frown. "Not our way."

They'd attracted Arthur's attention. "Does the entertainment displease you, Princess Aja?" His tone was neutral.

Aja withdrew her hand from Mary's, tucked it primly into her lap. She suddenly looked demure, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "It is very different from our entertainments at home," she said. Claire hid a smile at the diplomacy. "I do admit I found the knights fighting much more exciting."

"Hmmm." But Arthur nodded and returned his attention to the arena, gesturing to Sir Galahad, who promptly signaled the musicians. A blare of trumpets and the elderly knight was announcing the next battle.

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw Douxie taking his place in the stands, sliding in unnoticed at the end of one of the long benches. A moment later, Steve and Eli appeared, their arms full, budging the wizard over. She smiled as she saw Steve practically shoving food - Ugh, those horrible pies! - at Douxie.

Douxie didn't object as Steve shoved food at him. He'd just eaten, but even so he was hungry. The joys of eternal teenager-hood, enhanced by magical calorie burning, he thought morbidly, for at least the thousandth time, accepting the taste-of-home pies that Steve bore.

He surreptitiously stashed several in his magical pocket, because Jim was onto something with the idea of carrying food there.

His eyes fluttered closed at the taste of the few he did consume now, though, because rich and fatty and ohsogood--

His eyes shot open again as the trumpeters blared far too close to his ears and just slightly out of tune, announcing the next round of the tourney.

Which was....

Oh. Douxie sat up straighter on the bench, looking at the Knight of Skulls, followed by his squire, who struggled with the weight of the knight's axe. Over by the king, Claire too was tense, Douxie saw. The knight was fighting Sir Agravaine this time, not "Sir Claire," but that was of less overall importance than what might or might not take place next.

Arthur, on his throne, had no clue. No worries.

"Douxie?" asked Eli, sounding worried.

"Be ready," Douxie murmured, his spell bracelet flaring to life without his conscious input as he kept eyes on the king. "This may or may not be it."

"May or may not be what?" Steve asked cluelessly.

"Someone taking a shot at the king," Eli hissed at him.

Steve's eyes flew wide. "Oh," he said, dropping his food and patting himself down. "Pepperjack, where's my axe?"

"I'm not your squire, Steve!"

The battle started, both knights taking their weapons from their squires, who promptly fled the field. The Knight of Skulls was strong, powerful, and well trained. But so was Sir Agravaine, who was quick and not above a dirty trick or two, as Douxie well knew. Then again, neither was the Knight of Skulls, it seemed. The two of them were well matched, and the assembled crowd cheered riotously for both sides as the battle went on.

Focus, Casperan. The assassin wasn't the knight, and sure as sunrise wasn't Sir Aggravating. He in fact didn't know who the assassin was; the time between Claire's shadow portal and the rack of cold iron weapons falling on the changeling had been so quick Douxie hadn't gotten more than a passing glimpse of the man. He had an impression of dark hair and dark clothes - a description which fit half the people in this crowd, Douxie himself included.

So rather than scanning the crowd to try and find the assassin, his best option was to keep his eyes on the king - which meant the assassin would get way too close before any of them could stop him.

And Arthur could not die yet, not if they wanted their timeline preserved. Which Douxie very, very much did.

I'm deciding the hour of a man's death, he thought grimly, his gaze fast upon the royal box. It's not hubris. But gods does it feel like being judge, jury, and executioner all in one.

And there - in the space behind Arthur. A shadowy figure, raising a blade that glowed eldritch green.

"Claire!" Douxie shouted, even as his fellow wizard raised her hand, dark magic swirling around her fingers.

The assassin lunged.

And fell into shadow.

"Hail Morgana!" a voice cried. Arthur turned, to see a small man stood behind him, bearing a raised dagger which glowed a poisonous witch green. His face was twisted, cruel. Vindictive. And the strike was already falling, Excalibur was not in Arthur's hand--

"No!" a woman's voice cried, and the man fell through a dark hole that had appeared in the solid stone of the ground.

Arthur turned, his heart in his throat. One of Princess Aja's attendants stood stretching out her hand. A matching dark magic swirled about it.

But he had no time to consider the girl's witchcraft as the would-be kingslayer reappeared on the arena floor, knocking over the weapons board, which clattered down on top of him.

What emerged from the raucous mess was... not what Arthur had expected.

Ugly; horned; fanged. Four arms, with each hand clutching another of those knives that he had no doubt would be deadly with a mere touch. "A troll?"

Arthur's people screamed and scattered. He could hear Merlin's boy shouting to protect the king. Well, at least the wizard brat had his priorities straight.

His knights, good men that they were, attacked the threat. The troll snarled and threw two of his blades. They thunked into armor; sorcery ensued. To Arthur's horror, Agravaine and Lamorak turned to stone.

He had no time to mourn them. This, he thought, grabbing Excalibur and leaping down onto the field, is why I hate sorcery. It killed good men, no matter their strength of arms. It was cheating against the natural laws of the world, which decreed that the strong protected and the weak were protected. Magic pushed all that to the side; pushed it off a cliff.

By his side, in a swooping flurry of skirts and sleeves, Princess Aja also alit on the battleground. "Now this is more like it," she said, her strange weapon in her hands, forming a glowing shield before her.

"Don't let the blades touch you," said Merlin's apprentice, on her other side.

"Creeper's Sun," said Aja's sorcerous handmaiden, behind and between the two. "Why is it always Creeper's Sun?"

"Because it's easy to brew and effective--whoa!" The mageling cut himself off as the troll tired of their talk and lunged at them, blades shredding through the air.

Wizards! Disgusted, Arthur went on the offensive, meeting sorcery with steel. Excalibur's blade scraped and sang as it met the knives of his opponent. But the vile creature was quick and wily and had long arms for its size, making keeping out of its reach a near-impossibility.

"For years imprisoned," it hissed, "justice be mine!" One blade snaked inside Arthur's guard, aiming for his side--

"No!" A blast of blue light sent the creature flying away from him before the blade could connect. The troll bounced and rolled straight through the portcullis, into the town of Camelot.

Arthur didn't even have breath to thank the boy before Princess Aja shouted "After him! Do not let him get away!" She was only second-most in the charge, however; her formidable bodyguard was the swiftest. By the time he reached where she had cornered the creature, beside the fountain the town's washer women used, her double-bladed scythe whirling. She had dropped her human seeming; she was taller than the troll was, her reach far greater.

The other youths surrounded the troll, waiting for their own chance. And the troll knew it, glancing from side to side. Calculating.

Cornered animals, Arthur knew, were the most dangerous.

Finally he grinned, and drew a glowing stone out of his loincloth. "Fools. I've already won." He squeezed the stone, and Camelot...

Camelot shattered.

Arthur stared in horror, the world spinning around him as explosions ripped through his castle. His capital. His people. Screams, rubble, flames--

Merlin's boy had a grimace on his face as flames, barely held back by a blue net of power, crawled up the side of Merlin's tower. "Not the tower again," he lamented.

"I'll get them," Aja's handmaiden said, and disappeared, quick as a wink, into shadows and nothingness.

Which was when, to Arthur's increasing... no, horror could not even be the word... the demon creature smiled at him. Sauntered. With a gait and a cadence and a voice he knew well, it spoke, taunting him.

"Morgana?" He could hardly believe it. She was dead, she was surely dead. Without immediate aid, no one could have survived a wound such as he had inflicted upon her--

Beside him and behind him, those few knights who had been able to struggle through the flame and debris stood, as well as those members of Princess Aja's court who had none of them fled but rather raced toward the battle. It felt like their massed numbers should have been enough. But at the same time, Arthur felt helpless before his sister's specter. Before his guilt.

"Ugh, why do they always monologue?" muttered Princess Aja.

Lady Zadra's eyes tracked the troll; by her side, Lancelot's did the same. "Fight beside me, my lady?" he asked.

"Gladly," she replied.

"Ready, Pepperjack?" asked Sir Steve.

Never taking eyes off the target, the smaller knight whose name Arthur had not learned reached out to the side; their hands interlocked in some sort of symbol. "Creepslayerz," they said together.

One of Princess Aja's ladies-in-waiting rolled her eyes. "Ugh," she said, and reached toward the darkening sky.

Lightning cracked down from the heavens, blinding, deafening. It hit right where the troll was - or where it had been. Now it clung to the timbers of one of the buildings around the square. The fountain was a charred, smoking ruin. "Use magic I taught you against me?" Morgana proclaimed through her avatar. Arthur could barely hear her for the way his ears rang. "I think not." The troll landed on the ground again, a poisoned knife in each hand.

Someone was chanting; Arthur could not spare the attention to find out who.

Lancelot and Lady Zadra attacked; Sir Steve and his friend followed. The troll moved like nothing Arthur had ever seen before, faster than the lightning, supple as silk in the wind. Dangerous. Yet for all that, the quartet held their own. For a time.

Lancelot was knocked out of the fray; Princess Aja leapt in with a yell. Her other handmaiden dragged the fallen knight out of the way and picked up Lancelot's blade, standing in front of him, clearly planning to defend him if she must.

The smaller boy was the next to fall. "Eli!" the guardian girl yelled. Ah, that must be his name. Arthur moved to take his place. He was the troll's target, but between the four of them, surely they would overcome--

Darkness swirled above them, and out of it fell four figures - the handmaiden, the dragon, the apprentice, and Merlin. Finally, Merlin.

"What the blazes is going on?" demanded the master wizard.

And like that, a bright blue sigil flared beneath the troll's feet, lifting him into the air. Arthur glanced, astounded, at Merlin's apprentice (and how there were two of him, the king decided he would find out later). The young wizard's eyes glowed blue as his arms snapped out wide, fingers held in odd positions.

Merlin's eyes widened. "That trap is... Hisirdoux?" He sounded astounded.

The boy's hands flared out then clenched into fists. The spell under the troll's feet wrapped around him, forming a bubble. But the troll only laughed, his voice harsh and bitter. "Fools! You may stop me, but you will never win. You will never stop all of us!"

"Master--" grated the apprentice.

Merlin huffed out through his nose and stepped up. "Sloppy, as always," he commented, before slamming the butt of his staff to the cobblestones. A beam of emerald power shot out, wrapping around the blue bubble, tightening.

With the power of the two wizards combined, the battle was over in seconds.

All that was left behind was the wreckage.

Elsewhere, Morgana's lips thinned as she watched the aftermath of the battle. The three gods standing before her seemed less than fully impressed with her efforts on their behalf.

They didn't even care that Janus had sacrificed himself, been murdered by Merlin and his scrawny apprentice.

"Patience," Morgana said softly. "This was only the first step." And since Janus, her clever, vicious creation, had failed, indeed it was.

Since Arthur still breathed and led his pet wizards in their genocidal cause, she needed the next layer of her plan. She needed strength, she needed overwhelming brute force to destroy her murderous brother and his army.

She needed Gunmar.

Author's Note: Despite a week of sick children, have a chapter! I feel like I've maybe found my groove again for writing? Knock on wood, anyway.