[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 164/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 2nd February, 2024
The world spun and tilted as Douxie tried to hold it together. His eyes held fast on the red light of the Time Map, the globe and the timeline both blurring, losing cohesion in his eyes. Toby's increasingly garrulous threats against Arthur were a background buzz. He should put a stop to that, he knew, but - he couldn't.
Douxie couldn't even make himself shut the Time Map.
Broken.
They'd shattered what-was-to-be.
Or, rather, Arthur had shattered it, by ordering the imprisoned trolls be fed gravesand.
Jim had regained control of himself, thanks to Nimue's gift.
The other trolls weren't so lucky.
Callista wasn't so lucky.
How were they to come back from this? There was only one way to shock someone out of gravesand psychosis, and that was reminding them of an emotional connection that went deeper than the drug's hold.
Douxie swallowed, trying to come up with a plan.
Failing.
He didn't know how to fix this.
Krel's hand touched his shoulder. Douxie jerked, startled out of his spiral. "What?" he asked, hands automatically snapping the Map shut and bringing it close to his chest.
Krel looked surprised. "Are you all right?" he asked. "You seem a little...."
"No," Douxie said, voice low and hoarse, before he could let himself think about the words. "I'm not. I don't know how we fix this." Which was not the right thing to say, not what he needed to say, he knew, as he realized all the others were looking at him.
He was supposed to be Jim's left hand, the Merlin to his Arthur. He needed to sound like he knew what he was doing. Master wizards needed that aura of invincibility, of omniscience, because otherwise how were they going to convince people to do what must be done?
But he wasn't Merlin.
And Douxie wouldn't lie to the people who trusted him.
He forced himself to breathe. "We'll figure it out," he said. "We did before. And time... time doesn't like disruptions."
"Meaning what?" asked Darci.
He gave her a thin smile. "It means that given half a chance, the time stream will heal itself. We just... need to nudge things in the right direction."
"Uh, for those of us who weren't here the first time around?" Toby asked, holding up his hand. "Can we get, like, a primer or something on what does need to happen?"
"Well," said Eli reasonably, "what have we got now except time?"
"Wait." Krel raised a finger. "Aja and Zadra and Steve should hear this too. As should Mary."
Douxie bit his bottom lip, thinking. "All right. If we can get everyone in Merlin's storage room tonight, we'll go over it then." Giving him a few hours to get himself under control. "We just need to let Claire know, and she can portal everyone there--" His hand went to his pocket before he remembered and stopped. "Fuzzbuckets. No cell phones."
"Aw man," Eli complained. "How're we supposed to let everyone know the plans?"
Douxie sighed. "Won't work for the rest of you, but I at least can send messenger ravens. They'll have to do for now."
"Shh," Claire whispered to Mary later that night, the pair of them dressing in near-total blackness, having tumbled out of the bed they were sharing in the room off Morgana's. "Don't wake her."
"I need my necklace!" Mary hissed back, clearly searching for something in the dark. "If I can't have a working phone, I need something to dump my vibes into."
"It's just a necklace," Claire told her. Granted, it was a gift from Morgana, but they needed to be going, not to be looking for jewelry.
"Is your ring just a ring?" Mary shot back.
"I am awake, handmaidens," came the call from the adjoining room.
Claire could just see Mary's superior look of I told you so.
Morgana sighed. "I shall assume that the pair of you are not seeking the garderobe."
"What's a garden robe?" asked Mary.
"Not important," Claire, who did know what one was, told her. "We were just, uh...." She sought for an excuse for Morgana.
The princess raised a hand, summoning magic as she levered herself up on one elbow in her bed. Its curtains weren't closed; the gold of her magic reflected in her eyes as she met Claire's gaze through the open archway. "Shall I assume this has to do with your little group of time travelers?"
"It does," Claire agreed, nodding.
Morgana sighed, laying back down. "Very well. Do try to be discreet, handmaidens. And quiet when you return."
"Yes, ma'am!" Mary bobbed her head, her new necklace clutched in one hand.
Tying the lacing on her bodice into a neat bow, Claire raised her hand, summoning a portal between here and Douxie, and stepped through. Mary followed.
Some moments later, Aja followed Claire out of another shadow portal, looking around curiously. The room they had emerged into was made of the same gray stone as the rest of Camelot, but was bare of furnishings. A few shelves here and there held items she did not recognize.
"It's Merlin's storage room," Claire explained as Zadra exited the portal. "It's about as private a place as we can get, in Camelot. We used it last time."
"Lively," said Aja, her eyes skipping over everyone in the room, counting. Their entire party, bar Jim, were present.
Zadra's eyes were narrowed as the shadow portal dissipated behind her. "A most unusual means of travel."
"Not around here," Claire cheekily rebutted.
"Ugh." Aja stretched her arms over her head then shed her transduction and settled cross-legged onto the floor. "I do not like this Camelot. So many things have to stay hidden."
"I am not fond of it either," Krel agreed, joining her both in appearance and position. His shoulder bumped against hers. "Though for different reasons."
"All right." Douxie took control of the room. "Now that everyone's here, let's get down to brass tacks. First, for those who weren't there earlier...." He flipped open the Time Map. Aja's eyes widened at the red globe and ribbon that appeared above it. "As of right now, the time stream is completely broken."
"Which is not good," supplied Krel. Aja eyed her brother; knowing him, that was likely an understatement.
"Uh, question!" Steve raised his hand in the air. "Can't we, like, get some magic duct tape or something to fix it...?"
That startled a laugh out of Douxie. He shook his head. "Steve, we are the magical duct tape."
Claire chewed her bottom lip. "Douxie, how do we fix this?" she asked, her eyes meeting his.
He sighed. "It's inevitable that some things will be different this time around, due to, well, there being a lot more of us trapped here in the past." He gestured around the room. "But there are certain things that we know need to happen."
"Callista becoming Deya," said Toby.
Douxie nodded. "That's one. Jim's on that. We hope."
"What else?" asked Darci.
Douxie sighed again. And tapped at his vambrace, pulling out a blank whiteboard and a dry erase marker. He capped it and started writing. The smell of the pen reminded Aja of long days spent in Arcadia's educational penitentiary. The memory was oddly fond.
The top item Douxie wrote was CALLISTA -- JIM. Beneath that came EXCALIBUR. "The first time we went through this, Morgana and Arthur turned against one another. He cut off her hand, breaking Excalibur in the doing."
Steve looked like he was having an epiphany. "Wait, is that why Lake's sword is all broken?"
Claire nodded. "We took it to Nimue to fix it. Which is when Douxie freed her from Merlin's prison."
"Which is another thing that needs to happen," Douxie agreed, noting it down. "Also, Morgana's hand, her flesh imbued with magic, then became part of the Trollhunter amulet."
Toby suddenly looked green, his hand raising to the amulet embedded in his armor.
"Is that why we had so much difficulty building the new one?" asked Krel. "Because we didn't have a magic hand?"
Douxie shrugged. "Possibly," he admitted.
"So what'd you use instead?" Darci asked.
"Wizard's secrets," Douxie told her.
"Uh." Eli shifted from one foot to the other. "Um, Douxie? We all got hit by that magic wave, remember? So, um." His fingers tapped at his thighs. "If it worked, we're all gonna be wizards sooner or later." His brown eyes looked up, almost shyly, at Douxie's.
Who had stopped writing, looking more than a little poleaxed. "Uh." His gaze flitted around the room. Then he shook his head. "Oh no. No. I am not remotely qualified to teach a dozen new wizards at once. I'm not even really qualified to teach Claire!"
"I think you're doing fine," she rebutted.
"To a certain extent," Varvatos advised, "it does not matter if you are the best teacher of a subject... so long as you are the one that tries." His gaze wandered approvingly over Aja; she straightened, smiling, at his sign of approval. "And students often exceed their teachers' expectations regardless."
"Um." Douxie bit his lip. Looked at the whiteboard. Looked at his left hand holding the marker. "Right." He breathed out a fortifying breath. "All right. I need you all not to get freaked out by this, but... blood magic's a thing," he said, eyes now meeting each of the other time travelers'. "Part of that is, once you've got enough magic flowing through you, your flesh still holds it even after it's detached from you."
"Oh!" Toby's eyes widened. "Like how Jim used a bit of Blinky's stone in his amulet."
Douxie pointed at Toby with the marker. "Exactly. So. For the original amulet, Merlin used Morgana's hand to strengthen the metal. For the new one... well. A couple pints of my blood went into it."
Steve and Eli and Mary all made expressions of distaste.
Varvatos merely hummed thoughtfully. "If all that is required is that a wizard's hand be chopped off, Varvatos will happily oblige!"
"Thank you," Douxie told the Akiridion. "But there's emotional nuances to Arthur taking Morgana's hand which will also need to be fulfilled to correct the timeline."
Toby patted Varvatos' arm. "Don't worry. I hear there's going to be a big battle at Killahead. Lots of heads to crack."
"Yes, and that's the other thing. Maybe the most important thing," Douxie admitted. "Arthur needs to fight alongside the trolls at Killahead. Which means Jim needs to convince the trolls to fight. We've got a long list of things that need to happen before the timeline will stabilize enough for us to go home."
"Uh, forgetting something, aren't you, Teach?" Claire asked. "Your staff?"
Douxie's mouth narrowed. "Fuzzbuckets." He added it to the list. "Merlin will need a second master wizard to help him lock the amulet together. And, sorry, you're not ready yet, Claire."
"I didn't think I was."
"Wait, why didn't you need another master for Jim's amulet?" asked Toby.
Douxie cast him a lopsided smile. "Toby. We had Nari."
"Ohhhh." Epiphany rounded his eyes.
Aja stifled a snicker. "Not to break up this 'love fest'," she said, carefully enunciating the term she had picked up from Mary, "but I would like to ask a question. Do we know who gave the gravesand to the trolls?"
Claire huffed. "Oh, do we," she said darkly.
"It was Sir Gawain!" Eli said. "On King Arthur's orders."
"Sir Gawain, in the dungeon, with the gravesand," Douxie muttered.
Varvatos, however, nodded. "In order to frame his enemies and make his allies do what he wanted.... Yes, Varvatos thinks this King Arthur is quite like General Morando in some ways."
"But what does he want?" asked Aja, confused.
Krel snorted. "Your hand in marriage."
"My what in what?" she demanded.
"What?!" Steve demanded, staring. "But we're a thing! We are a thing, aren't we?" he asked Aja, clearly worried.
She took his hand between hers, patting it. "We are, my Palchuk," she soothed him.
"The king," Mary said, "wants to marry you so he can have access to all the resources of the kingdom he thinks you're from." She scoffed. "Should we try telling him it's another planet, and watch his brain get blown?"
"Let's hold that option in reserve," Douxie tempered. "For now, we need to...." He looked at his whiteboard and bit his lip, looking pained. "We need to let Arthur and Morgana try to tear one another apart," he said. He looked like he wished it didn't have to happen. "It's the only way we'll ever get back home."
"Mary." Douxie called her name almost an hour later as everyone was lining up for Claire to portal them back to their bedrooms. "May I have a word?"
"Uh, sure." She waved goodbye to Darci, then turned to the wizard.
His eyes were on her new necklace. "A lovely piece," he commented.
She grimaced. "It's from Morgana. Do I have to give it back?"
Douxie blinked, looking surprised. "No," he said instantly. "Just... may I examine it?"
"Sure." She pulled it off over her head, the silver chain weighing almost nothing.
The amber circle rested in Douxie's palm as he splayed the fingers of his other hand over it, blue magic wisping around them like ghosts. "Amber for electricity," he murmured, blue light in his pupils. "I should have thought of that. I'm sorry."
She scoffed. "We're not even dating. Why on Earth would you give me jewelry?"
Douxie looked back up at her, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as the light faded from his eyes. "Jewelry being limited only to romantic gifts is a fairly new thing, milady. And I should have considered that, given our group's luck, there would have been a time when you were away from modern technology."
"The lack of your so-called 'modern technology' sucks," Krel interjected from where he was waiting his turn to be portaled. "And what is available on this mudball is nowhere near galactic standard anyway."
"Go suck a lemon drop," Douxie shot back without any heat. He looked back at Mary. "There's nothing hidden on this that I can see with a cursory glance. It should be safe for you." He returned the pendant to her, folded her fingers over it. "Wear it, and learn what you can from Morgana, in good health."
"Wait, it could have been booby-trapped?!" Her voice rose a note.
He shrugged. "Keep in mind I've got a whole shelf full of cursed coins and gems under Jim's house. A safety check was never going to go amiss."
Her mouth opened. Her mouth closed.
"Sometimes," Mary said vehemently, "people suck."
"Okay," Claire said, once everyone else had been sent back to their rooms and beds, "where should I send you, Teach?"
Douxie waved a hand. "I'm good here, Claire. Though--" He hesitated. "One of us should go fill Jim in."
"Ooh. Yeah. You want to come?"
Douxie hesitated. "I do, but... I think perhaps the two of you might need some time alone together?" He gave her a smile. "It has been a bit of a rough day."
"That's one way of putting it." Claire raised her hands, summoning a portal that connected her to Jim. "You sure?"
"Yeah." Douxie nodded. "I'll dob myself up a pallet in here and catch a few hours. Make sure you get some sleep as well," he said pointedly.
"Eventually," Claire chirped at him, then stepped through her portal, seeking her boyfriend.
The king was on his knees.
Alone in the chapel, with Sir Galahad standing guard outside the door, Arthur prayed for guidance.
He had spent the day working for the stability of Camelot. For its ability to protect the people who sheltered in its wings. For, in the end, its continued existence.
But at the end of the day, he had to admit that he felt no spark of attraction, none whatsoever, for the young princess he was courting.
Oh, she was comely enough, he would admit that. There was nothing in her face or form that was off-putting.
But when he thought of Guinevere's warm brown eyes, and the smile that always tugged at the corner of her mouth.... There, Arthur melted.
His queen. His true queen. Always and forever.
Then, too, there was this: even did he wed Princess Aja, would he be up to the task of consummating their marriage? Of siring a son upon her?
He had bedded other women, when he was younger and his flesh hot and fervent, demanding release. But it had never satisfied him on a deeper level, only given him brief physical release. He had still itched inside, seeking something he could not name. He had found it only in his marriage. Since that first night of his marriage to Gwen, he had never looked at another woman that way, never desired anyone else.
Not even after the fell beasts in the woods had taken her from him.
This was a matter that no priest, celibate as they were sworn, could help him with.
Lancelot was right: for the continued stability of Camelot, Arthur needed to wed, to bed, to continue the line of Pendragon.
But he had no appetite for it, and knew, in his heart of hearts, that any such marriage would be a sham, a polite political fiction. And though he did not love her, neither did he wish any harm to Princess Aja.
So he begged God, through the long lonely night, for aid. For guidance. For a path to the future.
"So, Skinnylegs." Callista plumped down on a boulder next to Jim, who was literally licking his wounds. Aaarrrgghh hadn't gone easy on him, and Jim hadn't wanted to push enough to see the ire in his future mentor's eyes turn into murderous rage.
At the end of the spar, Aaarrrgghh had sneered at him and pronounced "Holding back. Weak," before stalking away.
Jim still wasn't sure how he felt about that.
"So?" Jim asked.
Callista looked him up and down as, not too far away, there was a scream followed by a cheer. Jim cringed; Callista did not. "You gonna tell me why you weren't this tall when you got tossed into that cell?"
Jim considered what to tell her. There were few good options. "Got cursed by a sorcerer," he finally said. Because that was close enough to the truth. His troll forms - both of them - were ultimately Merlin's fault. And they'd each felt like a curse at the time he'd gotten them, though his feelings had shifted since.
Callista bared her teeth. "So which one's real?"
Jim rolled his eyes. "Both forms are real."
"Obviously," she spat. "I'm asking, which one's you originally."
How would telling her neither go? Letting her know that I'm human part of the time?
Probably not well, Jim decided. Especially not when she was hopped up on gravesand. She seemed inclined to trust him for now, probably because he'd busted her out of prison, but how far would that go if she found out he was part of the species which had put her there?
"The other one," he said instead, which was a lie, but he'd had that form longer, and it felt more natural, so that was as close to the truth as he was going to give anyone not from the future.
"And that little sorceress girlfriend of yours?" Callista drawled. Her nails clawed illustratively into the stone. "She the one who cursed you?"
Now Jim growled, baring his fangs. "No. And she hates the guy who did it, so you can lay off."
She snarled back, showing her own teeth. "Hey, don't get so defensive. I was just asking!"
Jim bit back a sarcastic reply of his own. It was getting to him, this whole situation. He was on edge, the entire Gumm-Gumm encampment was on edge, and who knew what was going on back in Camelot. He needed to calm down and think.
But that was feeling harder than usual right now.
He took a deep breath of night air, trying to find inner peace or a reasonable proximity, because without it he was going to get himself killed or at least exposed--
Oh, Jim realized between that breath and the next. It's because there's no heartstone here.
In Camelot's dungeon, the trolls had been apathetic, resigned to their fate, because the heartstone under the castle soothed them. It probably even felt like home, in a way, the same way Arcadia's did.
Jim had grown up in Arcadia, where, according to Douxie, the heartstone's magic permeated the air. And while humans were largely insensible to magic....
We were all irritable and on edge, when we were traveling to New Jersey, Jim thought, eyes widening. He and Blinky and Claire had had their work cut out, keeping the trolls together and moving forward. He'd believed it was just the trauma of losing their home, their friends, their families....
But it was also because we lost the heartstone, wasn't it?
He cast a look around Gunmar's woodland encampment, seeing it with fresh eyes. There were woods to provide shade and animals to provide food; on the surface, it seemed all a roving band of trolls could need.
But with no heartstone to draw them together, the trolls, even those who hadn't ingested gravesand, were irritable. Snappish. Ready for war. He'd already seen half a dozen fights break out between members of Gunmar's army.
He's purposely keeping them keyed up, Jim realized. If I could get them to a heartstone... would that blunt the worst of the gravesand?
Strickler had said that the only cure for gravesand ingestion was emotional connection. Did heartstone exposure count? Had the Janus Order ever had access to one and thought to test the theory?
Jim really wanted Douxie here to ask questions of. Or Blinky. His own Blinky, the one from his time.
Instead, he got Claire.
"Jim!" she said, smiling at him as she stepped out of a portal.
There was a beat of silence, and Jim had just enough time to think Oh shit, before the cry went up from around the clearing.
"A human!" bellowed the nearest troll, catching Claire's scent almost immediately.
Another chuckled, stepping forward. "Come here, dinner," he said.
Claire whirled, her eyes wide.
Author's Note: Happy 20th Anniversary to my Wonderful Husband, who betas these chapters for me!