sakon76

Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 7th October 2021

Barbara waited at an outdoor table at Benoit's. She had deliberately scheduled her... she hesitated to call it a date at this point, but wasn't sure what word fit. Meeting, perhaps. She'd scheduled her meeting with Walter to happen on a day when Douxie would not be working, so they could have some semblance of privacy for their talk.

About whatever topics came up.

She looked up in time to see Walter walking toward her, no longer wearing the soft cast or relying on crutches. He was still using a cane, though; she couldn't help but approve that he was taking his healing seriously.

"Barbara," he said, taking her hand and brushing a dry kiss against its back. "It's a pleasure to see you."

She couldn't help blushing, even though she was still upset with him. "Likewise," she said, as he seated himself. There was silence for a minute, until she sought to fill it. "You're looking well."

He nodded at her. "I am endeavoring to follow the doctor's orders. I'm quite pleased to be cutting back on the painkillers."

"Yes, Jim did say that your homework assignments were a bit lighter than usual."

"Grading. The bane of any teacher," he said as the waiter bustled up to them. She knew her order and Walter knew his; it was just a minute until they were alone again.

Alone yet in public view. She felt just a little like this could be a scene from a spy movie: a clandestine meeting in plain sight, two sides exchanging vital information.

But they weren't on two different sides... were they?

"How are things going with the Janus Order?" she asked softly.

An expression of distaste crossed his face. "Weeding out the loyalists is... taking time," he admitted. "I've been able to send several off on fool's errands while we reconsolidate and consider the new direction our operations are to take."

He talked about it almost like it was a business, she noted. "Busywork."

"Indeed. Keeping them out of the way while others are promoted to more vital roles."

"And how are they all taking the news of Bular's death?"

His smile was wicked. "One cannot, of course, openly celebrate such news."

She arched an eyebrow, wondering where he was going with this. "Of course not."

"But in certain corners and reports... one can hear and read subtle expressions of relief."

Her smile was genuine now. "You think your plan will work?"

"I think," he said, "that I'm pulling as many strings as hard as I can. It would help if Nomura was more strategically minded, but, alas, she's never had any interest in changeling politics. That said, yes, I think I have a reasonable chance at succeeding."

Their order arrived: two cups of tea and a refresher pot, as well as a pair of pastries.

"And what of Young Atlas?" Walter asked.

"Jim's been keeping busy." She took a sip, her eyes momentarily closing in pleasure. "They've been chasing down the Triumbric Stones."

Walter's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Successfully?"

She smiled like a cat in cream. "Extremely successfully."

"I... see." He seemed to consider something. "I do believe I should speak with him privately sometime soon."

"I'm sure he'll be all ears."

"And Mister Casperan?"

"Douxie's fine," she reported. She cocked her head to one side. "I have to admit... you called him 'Merlin's lost apprentice'? I'm intrigued. I didn't get the impression he'd ever been lost anywhere."

"Mmm, perhaps not lost to himself, but lost to our agents?" Walter shrugged. "He's been a whisper through history, a rumor popping up here and there across the globe, but always vanishing again before anyone ever got an actual glimpse of him. I've been reviewing the reports. Assuming they're accurate... he has quite the fascinating history. And quite the penchant for throwing himself in danger's way. I suppose his parents must have been somewhat prescient in naming him."

"Prescient?" she asked.

"'Hisirdoux,' presumably derived from the French 'hasardeux'," he said, "meaning 'reckless.' Related to the English word 'hazardous'."

Barbara breathed out slowly. "Somehow... that doesn't surprise me," she said. Then she looked at the history teacher sitting across from her, the grey in his hair that seemed to say he was just a few years older than herself. "You're older than you look, too, aren't you?" she asked bluntly.

"Yes," he said, like he had neither reason nor desire to lie to her.

"Should I ask by how much?"

"Waltolomew Stricklander, my familiar, was born in 1716," he said easily. "I, however, was a few centuries older by the time I was paired with him."

There was... just so much to unpack in that statement. "Your familiar?" she asked first.

"In a different sense than Mister Casperan and his familiar. Changelings are... a troll and a human with their life forces tied together," he explained. "Our human familiars remain infants, cared for in the Darklands by goblins, while we live their lives in this world, doing our work, protected from the sunlight by the magic that binds us."

"That's horrible," Barbara said, aghast.

"Mmm." His tone implied that he did not find it so. "Have you a pocket mirror, by any chance?"

Wordlessly, she fished one out of her purse and handed it over. And watched as he spat on its surface. Her eyes widened as a second later the mirror started to glow, and Walter's expression softened to one of pure love. "Here he is," he said softly, shielding the mirror from casual view as he passed it back to her. Barbara looked at it and saw, to her surprise, a laughing dark-haired infant, healthy and plump with all the signs of good health and none of abuse. Then the light faded and so did the image; all that was left was her own reflection.

Walter's eyes were still on the mirror as she looked back at him. "I know it must seem heartless to you," he said, "but please do not believe that we do not love our familiars. They are... our better selves, perhaps."

"And if they were brought back to this world?" she asked.

"Then the magic would be broken," he answered simply. "Our familiars would live and age normally, while we would be trapped in our troll forms, unable to live among humans, alienated from our troll brethren, and unable to ever again bear the touch of the sun."

"And if you're killed?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Then the child dies too."

She couldn't help her expression of horror.

"Precisely," he said with a nod.

"And... before you're bonded with the child?" she asked.

"Mmm, that is a bit more nebulous," he said, taking a sip of his tea. "We're also stolen as infants, though from trolls rather than humans. Gunmar's forces are not terribly keen on keeping records, so none of us truly know where we came from, or who our parents were. When we're tossed into the Darklands, a spell is performed to keep us at that infant size while allowing our minds to mature."

"Unlike the human infants you're paired with."

He nodded. "We need to be small, you understand, to eventually fit back through the Fetch and be exchanged for our familiars. We don't grow normally until we're here. After that, we grow at a human pace rather than a troll one, until we reach a suitable level of maturity. Then we stop, like Mister Casperan. Though he appears far younger than we tend to."

"I'm not sure he had a choice about when he stopped aging," Barbara murmured.

Walter accepted that with a nod. "It likely works different for wizards than for changelings. Beyond that," he took up his thread again, "it's a few centuries of fighting, backstabbing, scrabbling for any scrap of vile nutrients, and hiding as best we can from both the creatures native to the Darklands, and the Gumm-Gumms themselves. By the time we're chosen, we're excellent spies and survivalists, and absolutely desperate to get out of the Darklands."

"The human infants are treated better than you," she realized.

He nodded. "Infinitely. Because if they are injured in any way, the spell between us is broken, and we become useless as operatives."

"I'm surprised that doesn't breed resentment."

Walter laughed. "Oh, believe me, it does. But the few times any of us have dared harm the infants, the punishment has been swift, impressive, and... very fatal. It tends to leave an impression."

"I'm sorry," she said, for lack of anything better to say.

"It is what it is," he said, then covered her hand with his. "Please, don't feel pity for me, Barbara."

"Walt, it's a cycle of abuse," she said. "You're stolen from your families, brutalized, directly shown the treatment the favored human children get, then made into spies if you manage not to get murdered? And then you're expected to go get more kids, of both species, and subject them to the exact same thing you were?"

"Believe me, I know it," he replied. "But as an adult, I've been through enough self-reflection to choke a horse. There comes a point where you must simply accept the horrors of your past, and move on. Besides," he added, a smile quirking at the corner of his mouth, "I'm fairly sure if your son has his way, there will be no more of us made."

"And you're okay with that?"

He shrugged. "We were created as pawns in a war. If he can truly end the war, as he seems to think he can, then what is there not to be grateful for?"

Blinky's map was pinned to the wall of the underground training arena next to the heavily annotated calendar.

"Mister Del Toro has agreed to meet us surfaceside near the gyre station with a rented white van," said Douxie. "Which will not fit all our party. Aaarrrgghh, Draal, I'm afraid you'll need to remain behind this time."

"Happy to stay behind," Aaarrrgghh said.

"I will accompany you on the gyre," said Draal. "It will be good to reconnect with some of my old-world kin while you seek out Merlin."

"Blinky?" asked the wizard.

"I would not miss an adventure like this!" Blinky said.

Douxie gave him a gimlet eye. "You do not get to drive the rental van," he pointed out.

"Nonetheless!" cried the troll.

"All right," Douxie accepted. He tapped at his phone, bringing up a weather app and setting it for south Wales. "The weather forecast, unfortunately, is for bright and sunny, so there's no sense in us arriving much before sunset. Assuming the gyre gets us to Britain as fast as it got us to Argentina, we'll want to be there around half seven, which means leaving California just before eleven-thirty a.m.," Douxie said. "Toby, you'll need to be with me, because otherwise Merlin will be ticked that I'm waking him for no good reason. Jim, Claire, it's up to you whether or not you come."

The couple exchanged a look. "Why on Earth would we stay behind?" Jim asked.

Douxie shrugged. "Just giving you the option. I know the old man can be a bit of a pain sometimes, so I thought you might want to take the last bits of time free from him to go on a date or something."

"What, you think we can't make a date out of a romantic drive through the English countryside?" asked Claire.

"Crammed into a van with five other people?" asked Archie. "I question your idea of dates."

"Anyway, it's Wales, not England," Douxie replied.

"Uh. Aren't those the same thing?" asked Toby.

Douxie stopped. And looked at Toby. "No," he said. "They are very, very much not the same thing."

The three mortal teenagers exchanged glances. "What's the difference?" asked Jim eventually.

Archie groaned. "Not the human geopolitics again."

Douxie spared his familiar a glance. "Short version, for Archie's sake," he said. "The island is Britain; the current nation is the United Kingdom. It is comprised of Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England. The first three have a lot of not so great history of being subjugated by the last one, and there are a lot of places where suggesting to the locals that they're English will get you at best laughed at, or at worst punched in the face. So best to watch your mouth over there, all right?"

"Oooookay," Toby said slowly.

"So which one are you, Douxie?" asked Claire.

"I'm Welsh. And you can call me British if you want, though Wales wasn't conquered until well after Camelot fell, so I'm older by far than any aspect of the combined UK."

"Right. Not English. Got it," said Toby, drawing a check mark in the air.

"Hey, what about Merlin?" asked Claire.

Douxie gave a lopsided smile. "I've no idea what modern nationality he'll claim, so feel free to ask him sometime, and I'll be as interested as you to hear the answer."

Jim tapped at the map. "So where's the waterfall located?"

Douxie grinned. "Miles and miles away. You lot took the long way in last time. We'll be doing the shortcut instead."

"There was a shortcut?!" Toby demanded.

"Indeed there is," said Archie. "And the only ones who know about it are... Douxie and me."

Douxie shrugged. "We built the place from Merlin's blueprints," he told Toby. "And as a cartoon once put it, 'A wise tyrant always designs his prisons for his personal escape.' Arch and I added on our own personal entrance."

"A quick in and out, and with luck, we'll have one grumpy master wizard to contend with," Archie said.

"Hopefully with his staff, this time," added Jim.

"From your mouth to the gods' ears," said Douxie.

Author's Note: So in searching for Strickler's age, I found that of the three changeling familiars we saw in the Darklands nursery, only Waltolomew Stricklander had no date beneath his name. Me, quoting a friend's Gundam Wing fic: "That's a cheap way to get out of answering." So, as writers do, I made things up. Also, I finally get to break down why my version of Douxie is very "do not call me English, because I'm not." (The result of many, many conversations over the years with UK friends.) And I was gratified by the response to Strickler's referring to Douxie as "Merlin's lost apprentice" back in chapter 21, so here's a bit more on that theme. Relatedly, the farthest back I've been able to trace any version of hasardeux is the mid 1400s. (Granted, I do not speak French, so I can't actually do the deepest trawl through the etymology of that language.) Douxie's quote about tyrants and prisons is from Transformers: Beast Wars.