[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 176/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 21st June, 2024
They arrived back in Merlin's spare room in Camelot. Probably for the best, Douxie thought. The room was certain to be unoccupied, and most other locations in the castle weren't. And the people were probably feeling a bit touchy about shadow magic right now. Arthur in particular. The thought brought a grimace to his mouth.
Steve, meanwhile, was gleefully hugging his hard-won god's tooth to his chest. "Best trophy ever, man!" he declared.
Douxie couldn't help chuckling at Steve's enthusiasm. All the terror of the cave and Nimue seemed to have washed away from the blond, like waves reshaping the sand on a beach. "You'll want to get that down to the weapon smith," he said. "Make a proper armament of it."
"What?" Steve looked blank. "I've already got two arms, man."
"He means a weapon," Claire informed him.
Steve lit up. "Oh! Oh yeah." His grin was broad. "See ya later, magic dorks!" He ducked out the door, presumably in search of said smith.
Douxie and Claire both stood watching after Steve's retreat. "Hope he's going the right way," Douxie said. "Actually, never mind. Steve gets lost, one of the knights or squires or pages will point him in the right direction." After all, Steve was their kind of people, in a way that Douxie himself never had been. "Does he ever remind you of a golden retriever?" he asked Claire.
"When he's not being a pain, sure." Claire's gaze slid sideways to Douxie. "You doing okay, Teach?"
"I am fine," he told her.
"Uh-huh." She looked dubious. "Then what was that Nimue said about 'an end to exhaustion'?"
She was always so clever, Douxie thought. Slowly he exhaled and sat down on the alcove where, once upon a time, Claire had fully mastered journeying into the Shadow Realm. "Claire...."
She sat down beside him.
Douxie bit his lip, trying to find a way to explain what seemed so obvious to him. His elbows rested on his thighs as he slumped. His fingers twiddled with one another. "I'm... a pillar," he said slowly. "Of Jim's burgeoning... kingdom. Realm. Court. Whatever you want to call it."
"Team," she suggested.
Douxie nodded, because that wasn't inaccurate, and was what Jim himself preferred to call it. "Jim needs support as he builds up his strength and allies. As he shapes the future that, gods willing, will be the one to save us all."
Claire nodded. "You're keeping him safe."
"I'm keeping all of you safe," Douxie corrected. "Because Jim needs you." Her and Toby in particular. "Which is not the same as wrapping you up in tissue paper and sticking you in a box," he added, because that was definitely not something he would, or could do. Jim's people all needed to know danger, to experience it, and to rise to the challenge. To know they could rise to the challenge, as needed in the future.
Claire snorted. "I don't think you could bubble-wrap us if you tried, Doux."
He nodded again in agreement.
Her hand rested on his, small but so warm. Stilling his restless fidgeting. "You're wearing yourself to a thread doing it, aren't you?"
He couldn't lie to her. Not to his student, his friend, his future queen. "The fifth century's not for the faint of heart or poor of resources," Douxie murmured, not raising his eyes because he didn't want to see her expression when she realized that, yes, keeping Jim alive was eating away vast swaths of Douxie's always tenuous reserves. The hexfire scar on his arm, the newer one, itched in reminder.
Claire snorted. "I'm not sure the mid-twelfth century is so much better."
The pithy observation startled a laugh out of him. "You are," he admitted, "entirely correct."
"I know!" Claire grinned at him, so infectious he couldn't help but return the smile.
"The thing is, we keep getting knocked about from pillar to post," he continued. "It's one thing after another, with no real rest in between. So, yes, I'm a bit worn down. And the Lady was correct - I would dearly love a break. But I know I'm not going to get one, not for a while yet. So it's really nothing I can do anything about, Claire. I promise I will rest, when and as I can. But that's not now."
Her smile, which had disappeared, came back, small and filled with a confidence. "I know," said Claire. "Why do you think I caught that pillar and threw it at Nimue, instead of letting you do it?"
Douxie blinked. Then he had to chuckle. "You are the clever one, aren't you?" he said admiringly. She'd seen his weakness and shifted to cover it.
"Well, someone has to be." She stretched her arms over her head. "And if you want smart, that's Krel or Eli. But clever... well." She knocked her elbow against Douxie's. "We've got to be the ones putting the wit in wizards, Douxie."
"Saucy," he bantered, with no heat. "And if I recall correctly, someone here pulls straight A's, and it certainly isn't me. So you're also one of the smart ones on this team, Claire." He'd had a conversation not all that long ago with Jim about the difference between being smart and being experienced. Douxie was entirely too much of the latter. Which, he admitted, was something this team was sometimes shy on. So his depth of experience paired neatly with various quicker minds to make them all more effective.
Thinking of which....
"Come on," he said, "let's go find the others before Merlin gets back. We'd better find out what diplomatic crises have occurred in our absence."
They had reached a part of the caverns where the paths stopped branching and there really was only one way to go: down a narrow path, glowing blue crystals spiking up along the ravine-like walls toward a distant stone ceiling. There was room for two to walk abreast, but not five.
Varvatos, blue and giant again, stumped ahead, glowering at anything that dared cross their path. Several small critters vanished with a squeak and scurry rather than risk the Akiridion's temper. Behind him, Krel walked beside Callista-maybe-Deya. Murmurs let Jim know that she had vague (very vague, apparently) memories of this road they were on. Krel paused now and again to squint at a rock structure. Jim had almost no chance of knowing what was going through his head, but he put his money either on analysis or on the glowing rocks reminding Krel of something he'd encountered during his galactic travels.
Toby, walking beside Jim, was equally analytical of the rocks around them, his darting gaze and expressive face letting Jim know he wasn't quite as jaded about geology as he might pretend to be while being The Trollhunter and trying to impress people who thought that title shouldn't belong to a puny human.
"So," Jim essayed, trying to find a way to break into the conversation he wanted to have without it being incredibly obvious, "any idea why some of the rocks glow different colors?"
"Wha?" Toby looked up at him.
"Well, I mean." Jim gestured at the blue crystals. "The ones in Trollmarket are mostly orange, right? Why are these blue? And for that matter, why is the Heart of Avalon green? It's a heartstone. Shouldn't it and Trollmarket's be the same color?"
"Oh! I know that one." Toby brightened. "Heartstones actually start really small, you see? Like one of these guys." He paused and poked at one of the little blue crystal clusters. "And different crystals have different minerals in them, like why an emerald's green and a ruby's red. Vendel said, the heartstones are the ones that survive to grow big. And, yanno, have the right resources around them to enable it. We're talking a geological timescale here, though. Millions of years. Maybe billions."
Jim cudgeled his brain, trying to remember how old the whole planet was supposed to be, and failed. But if Arcadia's was the last remaining primordial heartstone, didn't that mean it was by default the oldest? "Did Vendel ever say how old Arcadia's heartstone is?"
"I didn't ask," said Toby. "But you gotta figure it's pretty old, though, right? Whereas these guys--" He poked at the cluster again. "--They're like babies. Seedlings."
Krel, who had paused ahead of them to listen to Toby, frowned. "I need to do an actual scientific analysis of that heartstone," he grumbled.
"What, to compare it to Akiridion-5's?" Toby jibed.
"When I have the time and resources? Yes," Krel shot back.
"You know an awful lot about this for a human," said Callista/Deya. "A mostly-human, that is."
Toby shrugged.
Varvatos barked a jot of laughter. "Varvatos' future grandson likes rocks," he informed her. "Though Varvatos sees their value mostly as projectiles."
"You're all so weird," she complained, before continuing to walk.
"I consider that a compliment," Krel told her.
"That's because you're weird," she shot back.
"Ah, but you see, the best people are--" he said with the tone of an expert, following her.
Jim and Toby stood watching after the two of them and Varvatos. "You sure we can't keep her, Jim?" asked Toby.
Jim sighed. "I wish we could, but you know we can't, Tobes." Deya was one of his people the same way everyone on his team was, but she belonged here and now, not in their time. She was needed here and now. "We can always visit her in the Hero's Forge."
"Yeah," said Toby sadly.
It wasn't the same. It was never going to be the same.
"It's better than nothing," said Jim, hand on Toby's shoulder.
"At least we got to meet her at all," said Toby.
Jim hesitated. "Tobes--"
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," said Toby, not meeting Jim's eyes.
"You think I care?" Jim gestured illustratively at himself, over six feet of blue-skinned odd-fingered half-troll. Something that had, more than once, been called an abomination. Some of the speakers had even thought themselves to be out of the range of enhanced hearing.
Now Toby looked at him. "No!" he said, like even the idea that Jim might have a problem with Toby being anything other than human was more alien than Krel. "It's just... I needed to figure out what this meant for me, before I told anyone. Well," he added thoughtfully, "anyone but Douxie, anyway."
"You told Douxie?" Part of Jim wanted to be hurt that Toby had told Douxie this secret, but not him.
"Well, yeah." Toby shrugged. "I figured he might have a way to tell what my great-great grandpa was, since Nana doesn't know either."
Oh. That made sense. "Did he?" asked Jim, curious.
Toby shook his head and resumed walking before the rest of their party got out of sight. "Nope. Turns out there's no magical DNA tests or, I dunno, 23andMe family searches for non-human relatives."
"Dude," said Jim feelingly, "that sucks." His biological father might be an A-class jerk, but at least Jim knew where he'd come from. What he was.
"Yeah," said Toby. He shrugged. "For all I know, I really might be the rightful heir to the Quagawumps."
Jim had to laugh. "Wumpa would love that," he said, grinning.
"Yeah, but, you know what?" Toby smiled. "I think she's gonna be a pretty awesome queen. And I really don't want to leave Arcadia anyway, yanno?" He slugged Jim in the arm. "It's got too many good people, and too much interesting stuff going on."
I did leave Arcadia. The journey hadn't been pleasant; neither had the destination. And that was before Arthur had shown up and attacked Jim with dark magic. Jim suppressed a shudder and rubbed at his amulet, remembering the bone-deep pain, and the feeling of having his self ripped away, something which had hurt more, and deeper. "Me either, Tobes. Me either."
"Claire!" Aja cried when her dear friend came into sight. "And Douxie," she added.
"Glad to feel loved," the older wizard snarked, smiling, as Claire was enveloped in hugs by Mary and Darci.
"Wait, where's Steve?" asked Eli, looking around as if Aja's beloved oaf was somehow hiding behind the two wizards.
Douxie sighed. "Delivering his quest prize to the castle smith to be made into a weapon," he said, casting his eyes ceilingward.
"Oh, his Toothache axe," said Aja, nodding solemnly. Steve had been very proud of having his own named weapon. It was a thing that seemed important to humans.
"That's the one," Douxie agreed.
"Wait." Eli's voice cracked. "Steve gets an axe?"
Douxie and Aja nodded in tandem.
Eli's fists clenched. "That's not fair!" he wailed. "We're the Creepslayerz - we're supposed to do things together! When do I get my own weapon?"
"Ahh...." Aja exchanged a look with Zadra. "I... do not know?" she offered.
Zadra snorted. "Naming a weapon is foolishness." Zadra's fingers drummed on her own hip. "One weapon is interchangeable with the next; giving it a name only makes the wielder sentimentally attached, and thereby vulnerable to its loss."
Douxie sighed and rolled his eyes. He leaned in close to Eli. "Can't say I know that there's a special weapon in your future," he said quietly. "But... I have heard that someone builds an actual working Gun Robot."
Eli's eyes went wide. "Wait. Life sized?" he breathed.
Douxie smiled. "I'm told it was very impressive."
"Yes!" Eli fist-pumped, his eyes shining with determination. "That is going to be so awesome!"
"You said it, mate." Douxie patted him on the shoulder.
"You are very good at that," Aja observed as Eli, gloating, walked over to the three girls, new pride in his strut.
Douxie shrugged. "I've taught lots of young wizards the ropes. You just have to know how to inspire confidence without inspiring over-confidence."
Aja winced. She was very familiar with overconfidence. And rashness. And several other things that she was not proud of, but hoped she had trained out of herself.
Douxie, looking at her, nodded. She had the impression he knew the feeling. "So what have we missed around here?"
"There's going to be a tournament!" Mary said. "All the knights, from all over the land, showing off their manly moves."
"Or at least those who can get here in time," Darci said.
"You know they're not all guys, right?" Claire asked Mary.
Mary waved it off. "And the girls," she amended, seeming unconcerned.
"I would like to participate, but Zadra has overruled me," Aja told Douxie, casting an irritated glance at her bodyguard. "I am to stay with the Arthur king and practice politics. Zadra will represent Akiridion-5 on the tournament field."
"And do so marvelously, I am sure," Douxie said, giving a half bow in Zadra's direction.
But Claire looked troubled. "Douxie, the last time...."
He nodded. "Morgana sent an assassin."
"An assassin?" Aja's eyes widened. "Lively! Do you think she will this time also?" She would love to face off against an assassin, and see if the Earth ones were better than the interstellar variety.
Zadra looked pained.
Douxie shrugged. "The way the timeline is bouncing back and forth and we keep needing to steer it? Quite possibly."
"Well done," Morgana praised, her hand on the shapeshifter's shoulder as he panted heavily. "You've done so well, Janus."
Even through his obvious pain, he grinned at her. "Anything," he vowed, "for a chance to repay that king for his dungeons. Anything," he added, "to make sure no one ever has to endure that again."
"No one shall," Morgana agreed. "But you'll need more than just a human face, my darling. My... changeling." An old word, from old stories whose truth she'd never been able to verify. But one that felt appropriate, for this new breed of spy and saboteur. One who could move easily between troll and human, taking the rightful vengeance on the latter that the former had so long been denied. "You'll need weapons too."
Janus grinned fiercely. "I have a blade," he said, patting his hip.
"And skill at wielding it," Morgana agreed. When she'd found him in the Wild Wood.... Well, if she'd been merely mortal, and not more, he would easily have slain her.
Now she was redirecting that murderous impulse toward a more deserving target.
"You're thinking too small, my darling," she told him. Janus' eyes widened. "Why settle at taking down one king, when you could destroy Camelot, and all she stands for?"
Janus' eyes widened. The fire of zealotry and greed lit in them. "How, my lady?"
Morgana smiled. "Let me show you."
"Slow the ship, Hisirdoux," Merlin said, watching the approaching towers of Camelot as his apprentice controlled the airship. "Slower, slower...." A waving hand gave direction until his apprentice matched the speed Merlin desired. "Now aim for the highest tower. A little to the left. Good."
His apprentice was behind him, but Merlin could feel the force of that beaming smile, all in response to a scrap of praise. "Now bring her up alongside the tower. Lean back on the stick a bit... yes, like that." Slowly the airship rose, not quite as close to the tower as Merlin would have had it, had he been in control, but Hisirdoux was still learning. Finesse lay in the future; for now, he still needed to concentrate on the basics. "Yes, there. Pull it to a stop."
"Yes, master!" The boy did so, bobbling the ship for a second before managing to bring the vessel to a full halt.
"Now we disembark," directed Merlin. "Get you directly to your chambers."
"But master--" the inevitable protest came.
"Do not 'but master' me!" Merlin said, a slash of his hand cutting off the objection. "Camelot is unstable, and until this is returned publicly to Arthur's hand, the people will continue to be unruly, and likely to view any wizard as a valid target."
Hisirdoux wilted under Merlin's gaze. "Yes, master," he muttered, and hopped off the skiff, trudging across the tower toward the stairs.
"Keep him out of trouble, Archibald," Merlin directed to the boy's familiar.
He got a sniff for his efforts. "What do I always do?" Archibald sassed back, before following the boy, transforming from dragon to a mere black cat in the blink of an eye.
Merlin's lips made a line as he watched the pair enter the stairwell. Once they disappeared from sight, he turned, looking down over the side of the airship at the grounds of Camelot.
Lights glimmered below, as the day turned slowly into evening, a sure sign of Camelot's restored power source. But how had the boy done it? Mending a shattered heartstone was beyond any sorcery Merlin had ever heard of before. Not even the trolls, masters of geomantic sorcery as some of them were, could manage it.
A crystal, once broken, could not simply be healed. Not even by magic.
Yet Hisirdoux's elder self had apparently somehow managed it.
Merlin harrumphed and stalked off the side of the airship, leaping neatly to the top of the tower. A gesture of his staff and the vessel shrank, neatly encapsulated into a glass globe that he tucked away into the magic pocket within his armor. He made toward the stairs.
He needed to check on the Heart of Avalon, to determine if it truly was mended, and he needed to determine what to do with the interlopers from the future.
But first, Excalibur needed to be restored to its rightful wielder: Arthur.
Claire couldn't help feeling like this was all going to go pear-shaped sooner or later. Sure, they'd been on top of things so far, but....
But the original timeline hadn't involved Aaarrrgghh shattering the Heart of Avalon. Or Douxie and Krel wiping themselves out to fix it.
(Okay, so Krel hadn't been present the first time they'd time traveled to Camelot. Her point still stood about their resident master-wizard-to-be.)
"We must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place," she murmured. "And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that."
"What?" Mary, turning down the blanket on the bed, stared at her like she had two heads.
"It's from Alice in Wonderland. The book," Claire clarified.
"Which relates... how?" asked Darci, pursing her lips.
Claire shook her head, not knowing how to explain things to her besties.
"Hey." Mary abandoned the bed and stepped over to her, putting her hands on Claire's shoulders. "We're going to get home. You know that, right?"
Claire sighed, looking away. "I wish I did." They had last time, but things had already gotten screwed up enough this time that she wasn't sure.
Mary looked at her for a moment longer, then turned her head toward the open door. "Douxie!"
A scuffing of boots on stone and then the wizard appeared, poking his head into the small chamber off Aja's room. "You called?"
"Tell Claire we're going to get home," Mary demanded.
"We are going to get home, aren't we?" asked Darci.
Douxie sighed. "Chronomantic theory says yes," he replied. "Time doesn't like having displaced objects - or people - in it. The pressure builds up. Like a spot."
"Ugh," said Mary, who knew that by 'spot' Douxie meant 'pimple.'
He ignored her interjection. His eyes met Claire's. "I'm hoping we can get home by Jim pulling that shard out of his amulet at the opportune moment," Douxie said. "But if not, Gaylen's Core or no, Time will eject us of its own accord when it's had enough. Theoretically. So one way or another, we should get home."
"I'm not sure about all these 'theoretically's and 'should's," said Darci.
Douxie shrugged. "When your magic comes in," he told her, "feel free to study chronomancy if you want. I can only tell you what I've learned."
"That's not... what I'm actually worried about," Claire finally managed.
She was instantly the focus of attention again. "Then what is it?" asked Mary.
Claire sighed and looked away, not meeting anyone's eyes. "I just feel like something's going to go off the rails soon."
"'I've got a bad feeling about this'?" Darci asked.
Claire managed a thin smile. "Yeah."
"Claire." She looked up to meet Douxie's gaze. "It's almost a certainty that something else will go haywire," he said softly. "But that's what we're a team for, right? To cover each other's backs and be stronger together." He held out a hand.
That... actually did make it feel a little bit better. "Got it," said Claire, laying her hand on top of his.
"Team Trollhunters," said Darci, grinning, placing her hand on top of Claire's.
"Ugh. Such a lame name," complained Mary. But she too laid her hand on the stack.
We're stronger together, thought Claire. I just hope we'll all be strong enough.
Merlin glared at the heartstone that lay, shimmering and green, beneath Camelot. There was no sign, none at all, that mere hours before it had been damaged, nearly dead.
And that somehow his apprentice - not even a master yet! - had managed the magic that repaired it.
"Inconceivable," Merlin groused, and stalked off.
Author's Note: Darci quotes from Star Wars, and Merlin's last line is, of course, a reference to The Princess Bride. And it is with some reluctance that I now have to put this story on hiatus again. Today is my sons' last day of school, and so I have to shift into full-time parent mode for the next couple months. Plus I have a trip to Costume College coming up in a month, which I have totally not finished my sewing for. And we'll be going to England in August, though who knows - I may be able to get some writing done then, with my inlaws doting on their only grandchildren! In any case, if I am able to finish any chapters in the interim, I will of course post them, but I cannot commit to any kind of regular schedule again until mid-September. So until then, I hope you all have a good summer (or winter, if you are in the southern hemisphere!), and I will see you when I can.