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sakon76Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 13th October 2021
Merlin sat in the trolls' pub, a mug of what was presumably a human-safe beverage before him, watching with Vendel as the trolls and human youths mingled in jubilation.
(Archibald, Merlin noted, wasn't in the thick of things with Hisirdoux. He was, instead, sitting with Merlin and Vendel, lapping at a bowl of something suitable to a draconic diet. Either he was too sensible to get caught underfoot, or he was keeping a watchful ear on his elders. Likely both.)
Hisirdoux and Claire, both flushed with exertion, eventually left the throng of dancers and rejoined their friends at what was presumably a "usual" table. It barely held the four teenagers and three trolls who sat with them. Merlin couldn't hear their conversation over the raucous celebration, so he turned his attention back to Vendel.
"Left you a severed head, did they?" Merlin mused. "Not the usual - I'd have thought Hisirdoux would remember his manners and send a polite note. But perhaps not that surprising, if they wished to make Bular's defeat public knowledge."
Vendel sighed and took a drink. "I am not often made wrong," he said, "and I still do not believe their actions were in the right. The Trollhunter is meant to work alone, not drag others into danger with them."
"As Deya did, at Killahead?" Merlin questioned.
Vendel frowned. "Deya was an anomaly. She grew up in Camelot's dungeons, alienated from her own kind."
"Both James and Tobias are anomalies as well," Merlin felt it necessary to point out. "Yet despite their strange notions, both they and Deya seem to have been remarkably effective Trollhunters."
"I know." Vendel took another drink. "And that is what concerns me."
Parched, Douxie took a deep drink of whatever was sitting in mugs on the table. Only faintly alcoholic, it nevertheless fizzled on the way down. He could almost ignore the faint aftertaste of dirty socks.
(He'd had worse. He was also now accustomed to better.)
"Here's to mission success, and being allowed back in Trollmarket!" Toby said. The seven of them clinked their mugs together, and Douxie took another sip. The drink grew on you, he decided. Either that or it was killing his tastebuds already.
"So what next?" asked Claire.
"Toby needs to learn gem cutting the troll way from Vendel," Jim said, just loud enough to be heard over the noise of the crowd.
Toby went starry-eyed at that. "Awesomesauce!" he squealed, reminding Douxie that the teenager was, in fact, genuinely interested in geology.
(Huh. Completely aside from his enthusiasm for the position and the ebullience of his character, Toby's love for rocks might make him an even more palatable Trollhunters to the trolls than Jim had been.)
"Meantime," Jim said, "how the heck did Merlin know I was from the future?"
"It's in your aura," Douxie told him.
"My aura." Jim's voice was flat, unbelieving.
Hisirdoux grinned, leaning closer. "It actually is. Remember how I told you I can see magic that you can't? Auras're like that, but looking even deeper into the thaumatological spectrum."
"Wait, auras are seriously a thing?" asked Toby.
Douxie nodded.
"Huh," said Claire, mouth pursed in consideration. "Could I learn to see them too?"
He shrugged. "Maybe? Depends on if you have the potential for it, or if it's just simply something you have no affinity for."
"Like you and Merlin and shadow magic," she said.
"Exactly."
"So what do auras look like?" asked Toby. "Just, like, colored clouds around things and people?"
"Sort of," Douxie said. "Think of them as shrimp colors, things the human eye isn't normally meant to perceive. Eldritch vision, in the Lovecraftian sense. I have to sort of refocus to see them; Master Merlin's much better at it than I am."
"And time magic has a different color?" asked Blinky.
Douxie nodded. "Give me a sec." He could usually only see active magic, light limning the physical world as powers that had nothing to do with physics sparked and rubbed against the barrier of embodiment. But now, he focused, bringing that extra-sensory perception into high detail. He looked not at Jim, but beyond Jim, surpassing the flesh and blood being before him to see who and what Jim truly was.
Douxie blinked, surprised, and at the same time not, at what he saw. His lips shaped a low whistle. "Yeah, that's... there's no way Merlin could miss that, I'm afraid," he said. "You've got time magic splashed all over you, Jim." Also the strong placidity that spoke of trolls' innate magical natures, and bits of the human sorcery, colored emerald green, that was Merlin's. And Hisirdoux's own power, emanating from Jim's medallion. No taint of Arthur's corruption remained.
"But not the rest of us?" asked Claire.
He took a moment to study her aura, and Toby's, and Blinky's, and Aaarrrgghh's, and Draal's. "Those of us who remember the future, there's just a thread of it," Douxie said, pinching his fingers together to demonstrate how thin the thread was. Memories alone, it seemed, involved a good deal less power. The three trolls also each had a slight kiss of Douxie's enchantment on them, from his spell to let them pass his wards; otherwise, their auras were solidly and refreshingly just troll. Toby was mainly touched by the magic of his amulet: Merlin and Morgana and Douxie's magics braided together. And Claire's magical aura was almost entirely the blaze of her own burgeoning shadow magic, with no sign of Morgana's influence remaining.
Hisirdoux sighed in relief, and let the focus go. "Absolutely nothing unexpected," he reported. He closed his eyes, suddenly aching like he'd pulled an all-nighter, and rubbed at them. "Augh, that always makes my eyes hurt," he complained.
Draal pushed his mug at him. "Have another drink. Maybe it'll help."
"It will not help," Hisirdoux told him, but drank anyway.
"Your eyes went all weird when you did that," said Toby. "Like, glowy and stuff, but not blue."
"Central heterochromia," Douxie told him, gesturing at his own eyes. "I'm told the inner part of my irises gets like cat's eyes when I'm doing certain magics. Zoe thinks it's creepy."
"So why does looking at auras hurt?" Jim asked.
Douxie shrugged. "It's not one of the things that comes more naturally for me. It feels like... like trying to cross your eyes, that moment when it's almost too far and you feel like your eyes'll snap or something."
"Like this?" Toby crossed his eyes unprompted.
"Oh, gross, Toby!" Claire cried merrily.
"That's disgusting!" Douxie agreed, laughing.
Draal's eyes were wide. "How under Earth...?"
"Wingman okay?" asked Aaarrrgghh as Toby's eyes returned to normal.
"Fine, big guy." Toby patted Aaarrrgghh's arm. "Everything you can do and you can't cross your eyes?" he asked Douxie.
"Not a skill I ever needed to develop," Douxie replied, saluting the Trollhunter with his mug then taking another sip. Ugh, it was definitely growing on him.
"That's nothing!" Blinky declared. "Watch this!" He held out a finger before himself, focused on it, drew it closer, closer, closer, until it was resting on his nose and all six of his eyes were crossed.
"No way." Jim gaped.
"Oh, man, that's awesome, Blinky!" Toby declared.
Blinky blinked and uncrossed his eyes. "I believe I may declare myself the winner," he said smugly.
"I will drink to that," said Draal, suiting action to word.
And all around the table, Hisirdoux noted, there was nothing but happiness present, joy in one another's company and, for an hour or so at least, no pressures or worries about the end of the world to be found.
He let his glance slide over to where Merlin and Vendel were talking, Archie keeping an ear on their conversation, then looked away again. Let his better half worry about that now.
For one hour, Douxie would let himself be just his apparent age, a teenager having a good time with his friends, and nothing more.
"So, like, we were thinking we could set you up in the guest room of my and Nana's house?" Toby rambled to Merlin as they all walked back through the tunnels. "Jimbo's got Douxie and Archie in his spare, and Blinky and Aaarrrgghh in the basement, so he's all full up, and Draal's in my basement. And Claire's parents don't even know about magic yet, so her place is kind of out. And the only other sleeping space left is the back room behind the bookstore, but that's pretty far away, plus we thought we might kind of need to ease you into the twenty-first century, you know?"
"Do you ever stop talking?" the master wizard complained.
Toby grinned. "Not if I can help it."
"You'll like it, Master," Douxie put in. "His grandmother makes the best biscuits and cookies I've ever tasted."
"Wait, there's a difference?" Claire asked him. "I thought biscuit meant the same thing as cookie, in British-ese."
Douxie shrugged. "As a friend once put it, a biscuit's something you can put into a disc drive and get back whole. Cookies are... lumpier, I guess is the difference?"
"What's a disc drive?"
Douxie sighed and shook his head. "Children, all of you."
Jim, Toby noticed, had been texting on his phone since they'd left the pub. "Hey, what's up?" he asked his best friend, momentarily dropping the problem of Merlin.
"Nothing," Jim said. "I checked with my mom that she set the crockpot going before she left for work, and she did. But I just looked on social and apparently Steve's bragging he's going to crush everyone at the Touch-a-Truck-athon tomorrow."
"Oh, geez, that's tomorrow?"
"Good luck," said Claire. She glanced at Toby. "Hey, since we weren't allowed in Trollmarket, think Bagdwella sent that box to her sister another way?"
"I hope so," said Toby. Then he sighed. "Don't get me wrong, Daylight's cool and all, but I miss my warhammer."
"Cheer up," Jim advised. "You're gonna cut the Triumbric Stones, right?"
"Yep." Toby patted his pocket, where his amulet rested. "Set up a date with Vendel to get started tomorrow after school."
"Well, who knows, it's possible one of them might unlock a warhammer for you," said Blinky. "Different weapons for a different Trollhunter."
"And you were totally killing it with your old one," Douxie put in. "Let's hope the amulet takes that into account."
"Wingman smash good," agreed Aaarrrgghh.
"Children, all of you," said Merlin.
The words were the same as the ones Douxie had uttered just a moment before.
But the tone, utterly different.
Almost as one, the rest of them stopped and turned to face him.
"Mucking about with time," Merlin said dismissively, looking at Jim. "Changing who the amulet chooses as Trollhunter," he said, toward Toby. "Dealing in shadow magic with no competent tutor," directed at Claire. "Disobeying my direct orders to not get involved," he said to Douxie and Archie. "And I have no jurisdiction over the three of you," he said to Blinky, Aaarrrgghh, and Draal, "but the mere fact that you all knew all of this and encouraged them nonetheless--"
"Now wait just a minute--" Blinky began before Douxie raised a hand.
"Jim," said the younger wizard softly, "I think you'd better take everyone else ahead. Master Merlin and I clearly need to have a talk."
"Doux," said Claire.
He shook his head at her, never looking away from the older wizard. "Master Merlin is missing some pertinent facts when making his assumptions."
"You can say that again," muttered Toby.
"I agree with Douxie," Archie spoke up. "He and I are the best to handle this particular conversation."
"You always agree with him," Draal pointed out. "Nonetheless, I agree that we should leave the wizards to it."
Jim put a hand on Douxie's arm. Douxie broke his staring contest with Merlin to give Jim a nod and something that might have been a smile.
Jim sighed and nodded in return. "Come on, guys," he said. "Let's let them get this hashed out without an audience."
Douxie waited until Jim and the others had rounded the tunnel's bend before he quietly said "Silentium," casting a bubble of absolute silence about himself and his master. Not a word they said would be heard outside it. It wasn't proof against lip-readers, of course, but there were other charms that could take care of that when necessary. Right now, it wasn't.
Merlin raised an eyebrow.
"Sound travels," Hisirdoux said quietly, "and tunnel walls echo."
That, Merlin accepted with a nod. And waited.
"Do you even care how many people died?" Douxie asked.
"People die every day," Merlin said. "You know that as well as I, Hisirdoux."
"Ask me their names," Douxie said tightly.
"It's irrelevant--"
"Ask me!" he snapped.
Merlin paused and actually looked at him.
"Toby," Douxie said, with a nod of his head toward where the Trollhunters had gone. "Strickler and Nomura, two of our closest allies, not that I suppose you'd care about them. Draal and Vendel, before that. Trolls and changelings and humans alike slaughtered when Gunmar got out and Morgana caused an eternal night. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of humans across the globe when the Titans marched."
"Tragic," said Merlin, "but mortality is inevitable."
"Archie and his father, locked away forever in a Trollmarket with no entrance," Douxie continued. "Bellroc and Skrael, fallen. You taught me the consequences for when a god dies."
That, at least, made concern cross Merlin's face.
"Nari," Douxie breathed. "Nari died. Do you care about that?"
"Hisirdoux--"
"Morgana sought to redeem herself, and died in the doing," Douxie continued, ruthless. "The Arcane Order has Arthur, they've resurrected him and brought him back as their fell puppet. She died stopping him."
"Arthur?" Melin breathed. Now there was an expression on his face. Surprise, maybe?
"Do you want to know what he did?" Hisirdoux asked. "He soulslaved the Trollhunter and made him a weapon against his friends. You say shadow magic is dark; it is nothing compared with what the Arcane Order let him do."
Merlin's lips were a line.
Hisirdoux faltered.
"Go on, Douxie," Archie urged.
"You," he said, very quietly, to Merlin.
Merlin closed his eyes. "How?"
"Arthur... ran you through with Excalibur," Douxie said, remembering. "And threw you out a window from a thousand feet up." He still had nightmares about falling, about seeing someone fall. "You died in my arms, Master."
Now Merlin's face was truly unreadable. "I'm sorry,"
"Don't be sorry, help us stop it all from happening again!" Douxie snapped, suddenly angry. "I get that you don't approve of half of everything I do, but how can we do anything better if you won't help us?"
Merlin was studying him now. "You had already earned your mastery, hadn't you?"
Hisirdoux's hand clenched. "Yes, for the lot of good it does now. My staff didn't travel back with me."
"I see," said Merlin. He looked thoughtful. "You really trust these children?"
"With my life," Douxie replied, not even needing to think about it. "With Archie's life. Your amulet does not choose wrongly, Master. And it's chosen not one of them, but two."
"Hmph." Merlin knocked the butt of his staff on the ground. "I shall watch them and consider your words, Hisirdoux. But my conclusions," he warned, "shall be my own."
"We did not choose this path lightly," Douxie said. "But the alternative...." He shook his head and met Merlin's eyes again. "None of us could live in that world. Not when we had a chance to fix it."
Merlin looked at him for a moment longer, then conjured a chair with a wave of his staff. He sat. "Tell me about it," he said.
Douxie did.
Author's Note: The discussion about biscuits versus cookies is from actual conversations American me has had, being educated on the difference by my British husband and our British friends. :) And the idea of Jim having troll magic in his aura is borrowed, with permission, from Ascaisil's story Lifting Atlas.
