[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 64/?

[sakon76]

Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 1st January 2022

Douxie was playing with a bit of magic when Claire arrived, tossing it back and forth between his hands, throwing it high in the air, catching it behind his back without looking. He split it into three and juggled it, then he rolled the balls over and around his hands like a contact juggler, Finally, two of the balls vanished and the last turned into a coin which he flipped over and around his knuckles until it, too, vanished, and he reached forward, pulling it out of her ear.

Smiling and impressed despite herself, she applauded.

He smiled back, and between one breath and the next, envy struck her between the ribs.

"Claire...?" Douxie straightened.

"It's nothing. It's stupid."

"It's clearly not nothing, and it's not stupid if it's bothering you." He took her hands in his own. "What's wrong?"

She sniffed and used the back of one hand to scrub at her eyes, which were watering more than she wanted. Which was any at all. "I'm just... magic's so easy for you, and you love it, and I don't feel that way about mine."

"Oh." He stood there, blinking. "Is... is that all of it?" he asked. "Or is there something else bothering you, too?"

There was, but she didn't know how to phrase it. Until she sort of did. "Is Mary stronger than me?"

Douxie blinked again, then nodded. "Right, this is going to be one of those conversations. Which are generally best had with something disgustingly sugary. Come on, Jim made about a million cookies this morning before he left."

They ended up at the Lake dining table with tall glasses of milk and, as promised, about a million chocolate chip cookies between them. Archie had taken one look at that setup and high-tailed back up to his and Douxie's room. Douxie chuckled, then looked back to Claire. "All right," he said, "do you think this is one problem, or two separate ones?"

"I... don't know," she said, crossing her arms and looking at the table. "I know I've been feeling disconnected from my shadowmancy, and NotEnrique said I should figure out if I have any other kind of magic that I might be more connected to. But then Mary of all people turns out to have magic, and you said she's probably stronger than anyone at HexTech, and she didn't even know it!"

"That... is rather a lot to unpack," Douxie said. "Right. First thing first. Mary probably is stronger than you right now. Ah!" he said, holding up fingers, forestalling her response. "Hear me out first. Mary is a technomancer. She's been using technology for at least a decade, growing her skill and familiarity with it for that long, even if she didn't know her magic resonated with it. You, on the other hand, have had shadowmancy for just a couple months at this point. There is no way you're going to be as strong as her, not when she's been building up her muscles, so to speak, that much longer than you."

Claire huffed in annoyance.

"Flip side of the coin is, you know how strong you're going to get in the next couple years. You're learning, and building your own power, at an incredible rate, Claire, even if it feels frustratingly slow to you right now." Douxie smiled. "And, to help you feel better... do you know how rare shadowmancers are?"

"Pretty rare?" she guessed.

"Extremely rare," he replied. "Claire, every answer I've got from my inquiries points to you being the only one on the entire planet right now. Technomancers? There's nearly a dozen in Arcadia alone. So don't compare yourself to Mary and let it rob you of joy. She's good at what she does, and with a bit of work could be brilliant. Same as you. You're apples and oranges, all right? Both fantastic."

"That... helps a little," she admitted.

"Have a cookie," Douxie said, taking a bite of his own.

Claire obeyed, and had to bite back a moan at the sheer decadence. There were caramel chunks in with the chocolate, and it was so good.

Douxie grinned. "I know, right? Marry him, and you'll be a lucky woman." He paused. "Actually... are you eating enough to fuel your sorcery, Claire?"

"What? I'm eating fine," she told him.

Douxie leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow. "There's eating fine for a growing teenage girl, and then there's eating fine for a growing teenage wizard," he told her. "I've gone over this with Jim and Toby, but... magic has a high calorie count. You're burning energy every time you do sorcery. Don't," he said, pointing at her, "let it burn away your reserves. That's a fast and ugly way to end up with long-term health problems and short-term magic burnout."

Claire raised an eyebrow. "No wonder you're living with Jim, then."

"There's more reasons than that," said Douxie. "But access to a stable source of high calories has always been one of the challenges wizards face. So just keep that in mind if the word 'diet' or 'figure' ever gets pushed your way."

Claire flinched, remembering some things her parents had said.

Douxie was scarily perceptive sometimes. His eyes narrowed. "Who told you you needed to lose weight?" he asked softly.

"My parents," she said, looking away.

He sighed, closing his eyes briefly then reopening them. "I will absolutely tell them everything and go to bat for you, Claire. I won't even blink an eye at it. But before I get to them," he said, looking directly at her, "I need you to understand how vital this is. The classic image of a mage is a slender figure, right? You've seen the illustrations in A Brief Recapitulation."

She nodded.

He leaned across the table. "That's because we were all starving. All the time. I spent centuries being able to count my ribs - that's not healthy. And even now, half of us don't know how to eat balanced meals, and the other half lack the resources to be able to fuel our magery properly. The cheap calories available in the modern era are a blessing, but you do not want to know what percentage of my diet was instant ramen. For years. The way wizards are messed up about food is something that I absolutely count as multi-generational trauma. And I do not want you, or Mary, to become victim either to that, or to the unrealistic beauty standards held up in front of women these days."

Claire drew in a shuddering breath, feeling shaken. "I'll try," she said in a small voice.

"No." Douxie pointed his half-cookie at her, smile hovering at his mouth. "You will not try, you will succeed. Because you are Lady Claire of the house of Nuñez, the finest shadowmancer in the realm, with a will of steel, and the opinions of those who are only half-informed will not stop you from doing what is right for yourself. Got it?"

Claire had to huff a laugh at that, and smile. And take a bite of her own cookie. "Got it, Teach."

"Good." Douxie leaned back and considered. "Now, as to the other bit... it's almost certain that you've got more magic than just shadowmancy. But maybe more than that, it's that practicing your skills been like makework, hasn't it? Boring, dull, repetitive stuff you already know."

Claire blinked. "Yeah," she said, his words suddenly illuminating her problem. "I'm relearning things I've already learned. It's not fun or interesting anymore." She worried her bottom lip. "I was thinking it was... well, have you heard of 'gifted kid syndrome'?"

"Heard of. Don't know much about."

"It's... when you've always been good at things, and they're easy, so you don't really have to work at them," she explained. "But then you get to college, and things get hard, and you've never really learned good study habits, so you just burn out, while everyone who was working so hard in high school has good study habits, so they pull ahead while you're left behind, sinking."

"Hn." Douxie seemed to consider that. "And you're one of the gifted kids?"

Claire nodded. "And I thought maybe magic was like that. But maybe you're right, too, and I'm just not having fun with it anymore." She looked at him. "But you keep having fun with it, and you've been doing it for nine hundred years. So maybe I was jealous of you as well as Mary."

Douxie held fingers up. "First, no comparisons, remember?" Claire nodded. "I love magery because it's the only thing I've ever been able to keep with me, and because it's been the direct source of all the things that have been best in my life. Archie. All our friends." A shadow passed over his face. "Merlin," Douxie said lowly.

Claire swallowed. But before she could say anything, Douxie's expression cleared.

"I love magic because it's my whole life, Claire. For you... it isn't. It's a big part of it, an important part, but it's not something that's your foundation and your basis the way it is for me."

"Douxie..." she said, but he moved on.

"Now, you need to keep building up your strength with shadowmancy, we're agreed on that, right?" Claire nodded again. "So we need to find some of your other talents so that you can have something interesting to work on while you also keep retreading old ground."

She sighed in relief. And a little in frustration that he clearly didn't want to talk about whatever had happened between him and Merlin. Jim hadn't exactly been totally forthcoming, and Douxie wasn't either. But maybe it wasn't really her business. "That sounds perfect."

His fingers drummed on the table. "I'll wager you can do levitation. Almost all wizards can. It's usually a breakout skill, in fact, so we'll see about trying it. Beyond that...." Douxie's mouth pursed. "What's easy and fun for you, Claire? And what's hard?"

She huffed and finished her cookie, chewing and swallowing as she stole another. "I can't wrap my head around how rocks have magic," she complained. "I tried. Whatever Jim and Toby are doing with gem-cutting, I don't get it."

Douxie nodded. "Right, geomancy's out, then," he said. "I can understand it and follow the theory, but, honestly, trolls really are the best at it. So definitely don't feel bad about that one. But on the other side, what do you like? Not magic, just real life. That usually gives some clues."

Claire thought about it. "I like acting?" she offered. "I like memorizing the lines, and having people look at me, and showing them a story."

Douxie slowly grinned. "That's definitely the casting of illusions, then," he said. "Actually, you've done just a bit of that already. Remember when I taught you how to conjure ravens?"

"You said they were messengers," Claire accused.

"That's how wizards usually use them," he replied, unbothered. "But they're also totally illusions. They don't exist outside the sorcery, so what else could they be?"

Claire blinked. And sat back in her chair. "Huh."

"So," Douxie said. "Which do you want to try today?"

When they adjourned down to the arena, they took a plateful of cookies with them.

---

"Turn it slowly, rotating to the left," Vendel instructed as Jim manned the grinding wheel.

He obeyed, thinking he could sort of see the logic to Vendel's instructions. "How many stones do trolls usually cut before they're good at this?" he asked absently, focusing on the work.

Vendel laughed lowly. "Thousands."

"I've got a way to go, then." Jim drew the tiger's eye away from the stone wheel, examined it, then pressed it back against the grinder.

"You have barely begun to study the art," Vendel said. "A true master at it will be thousands of years old, and have broken stone each day since whelphood."

"And are you a true master?" asked Jim.

"To my sorrow, no. Gunmar killed my teacher when I was but a journeyman, and since then I have been too busy leading to seek another." Vendel's face looked longer than usual. "It is one of my few regrets, Trollhunter, that I could not master the way of the knapper and pass the Trial of Stone."

"Trial of Stone?"

"Mmm." Vendel went to his shelves. Jim pulled the tiger's eye away and waited as the troll rummaged through his shelves, until finally he pulled down a gray stone box. He brought it over, and opened it.

Inside, a rock rested, a foot-tall pillar of what Jim thought might be jade, though it was flecked through with other colors. It looked almost like raw rock, but as Jim peered closer, he could see that each tiny facet of it was carved, engraved with Trollish characters and images. "Whoa," he said, impressed despite himself at the delicacy of the work.

"My journeyman's piece," Vendel explained. "A master's piece would be made directly out of heartstone, and carve a great legend into being. Only five such works remain now to trollkind; all others have been lost or destroyed."

"What legend would you have told?" Jim asked.

Vendel's mouth shut for a minute, then opened. "Once, I would have said the legend of Deya, greatest of our heroes. It would have made it so that no troll could ever forget her name, her valor, or her sacrifice."

"And now?"

Vendel considered him. "Ask me again when you and your companions have defeated Gunmar," he said, then nodded back to the wheel. "Now continue grinding that facet."

---

A proper gift for Nomura, thought Draal, would be one that reflected her interests. Perhaps one that indicated he shared them. Something to invite closeness, and the possibility of a future before them....

...Once Trollmarket was rid of the Pale Lady, at least.

"Why the long face?" Toby asked, barely panting. Draal approved; once, the human Trollhunter would have collapsed flat by now.

"I am considering an appropriate courting gift," Draal said, and lunged.

Toby whirled out of his strike path, and gracefully tapped the flat of his blade against Draal's arm. "Courting...? Oh," he said. "Like for a girl? Like for Nomura?"

Draal growled. "Does everyone know about that?"

"Buddy," said Toby, grinning, "every single last one of us does. Give up the secrets."

Draal huffed and submitted. "I have no skill at courting," he admitted. "My entire life I have trained to be a warrior." It was that, in fact, that had led him to Nomura - a glimpse at an unfamiliar figure in the moonlit woods, performing her own training with a ferocity that had enchanted him. He hadn't known then that she was a changeling. The rift between them had come only at the discovery, and had been his fault alone.

Though, in measured hindsight, he could see how she had never fully opened to him. That she had always known what his reaction would be, and prepared herself accordingly.

It galled him, how well she had judged him, and that he had failed to exceed her expectations.

"Well, I don't know about Nomura, but I am a pretty good judge of women," the Trollhunter mused, leaning on his sword. "What's traditional troll gifts?"

"Food," Draal listed. "Special stones. For warriors, weapons."

"Well, she does have those scary scimitars of hers, and she seems pretty attached to them," Toby said. "Anything you could give her, that's, y'know, supplemental?"

Draal stepped back and considered it. Part of his initial attraction to Nomura was how she had not relied on honor to dictate her moves. He had learned from her. Anything effective was game.

Perhaps she would enjoy something subtler...? A hidden weapon? One which might offer commentary of her dual status, and, perhaps, signify his appreciation of her complexities?

"I know that look," Toby said. "You have an idea."

"I may have the beginning of one," Draal admitted. "I thank you for your assistance."

"Oh, you know me, I'm the love master," Toby chuckled.

"Then perhaps I should ask how your courtship goes of, what was the lady's name again?" Draal asked. "Darci, was it?"

Toby squeaked, his eyes widening. "That's... kind of in her court right now."

Draal laughed uproariously. "So the sage himself has no lover!"

"Hey!" Toby defended himself. "She was totally my girlfriend in that other timeline!"

"Then you have hope that she will be so again."

"Yeah." A besotted look crossed his face. "She's gorgeous, and smart, and funny...."

"And you are losing focus," Draal said. "Think fast, Toby!"

He lunged, and Toby squeaked, eyes wide.

He curled into a ball to dodge the strike.

And that ball was a sphere of armor, rolling gently away from Draal, his own eyes now open wide with surprise.

Draal's mind flashed through a thousand thoughts. He would not have expected a human to be able to study the art of the Spheroid Brotherhood.

But if life was going to grant him a Trollhunter with abilities similar to his own....

Well, Draal would be a fool if he did not train his smaller brother-in-arms in this skill as well.

He grinned as Toby uncurled.

---

Finally, the tiger's eye was cut to Vendel's satisfaction and his own.

Jim opened his amulet - with its new inscription, Jeez, was Nimue possessive and competitive or what? - and placed the glinting brown-gold stone in one of the six divots surrounding the Time Stone. It was one space away from the fire opal, leaving one more evenly-spaced slot to put the stone of a living troll in. If Douxie's guess on what it would take was correct.

The six interlocking teeth folded flat again, concealing the stones within.

"Well, let us see if that has any effect," said Vendel.

Jim nodded. "For the good of all," he said, holding his amulet, "Excalibur is mine to command."

He saw Vendel's eyebrows raise at that, as the armor formed around Jim, the green-shot black Akiridion bodysuit followed by lightweight magic metal gleaming silver and glowing blue.

The circlet which had never left Jim's head reappeared in a ripple of blue-green light.

Vendel's eyebrows rose farther. "I see you have been keeping exalted company."

"Yeah." Jim hesitated. "Do trolls have gods? I mean, either real physical ones like Nimue, or... the maybe-unreal ones like humans worship?" He knew next to nothing about troll religion, he realized. Including whether or not there even was troll religion.

Vendel sniffed. "From rock we are born, to rock we return. We are practical, pragmatic beings, young human. We do not seek the platitudes of cosmic creation the way humans do. If there are such powers, they are of no concern to us. What matters to trolls is that which is, not that which might be."

Something about his phrasing echoed in Jim's mind, resonating with something Archie had once said. "Like dragons?" he asked. "Archie said they're realists and that humans--wizards, specifically--are the dreamers. The... creators."

Vendel looked pleased. "Yes, quite. Your short-lived kind seeks answers which mine does not believe worth the pursuit. We are stone; yours are the feet that run across us, and then vanish. No matter how much you may chip away."

"Oh." Jim blinked, feeling like his eyes had suddenly been opened to a new way of looking at things. "Your plan for surviving Arthur... was just to outlive him, wasn't it?"

A nod. "Humans come and go; magic itself remains."

Jim really, really wished that was true. Or that the Arcane Order saw things that way. "Even if humans have been killing off everything magic for centuries?" he asked.

Vendel sighed, and sat. He beckoned Jim closer. "I will tell you a secret, young Trollhunter."

Jim stepped closer, and waited.

"Life itself is magic," said Vendel. His finger touched at Jim's chest. "Even had you never come across the amulet, you, and all your kind, would still be in the midst of it, because it is in you as well. In everything that lives, and breathes, and grows. And as we trolls well know, even in rocks and stone. The molten heart of the world beats with magic. Arthur's quest was a madman's delusion, nothing more."

Several more things slotted together for Jim. "Life is magic," he said.

Vendel nodded.

"And humans... generally resent magic because we have so little of it that it doesn't prolong our lives."

Vendel nodded again.

Jim looked up at him. "How did you not just kill me and Tobes the minute you found out we had the amulet?" he asked. "If humans tend to wreck everything out of, I don't know, a giant temper tantrum that we drew the short straw...." He drew in a breath and, for what felt like the first time, realized the enormity of his task. Beyond just defeating the Arcane Order.... "How can I convince people to stop destroying magic just because they can't have it?"

"I do not know," Vendel said sadly.

---

---

Author's Note: Happy 2022, everyone! I didn't get as much writing done in December as I wanted, due to children being sick and then on vacation, not to mention making my annual set of Christmas gift quilts for them and my niece, but I've managed to pull a few chapters ahead of where I left off. And hopefully when they start school again on Monday, I'll be able to write more. Vendel's unachieved "Trial of Stone" in this chapter was inspired by the Skeksis' "Trial by Stone" in the movie The Dark Crystal, though I went an entirely different direction with it.