[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 169/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 22nd March, 2024
"We've got to go rescue her, right?" Mary asked. "I mean, Morgana's nice."
Toby, Jim, and Douxie all exchanged glances. Do you want to be the one to tell her? they as much as asked each other.
With a sigh, Douxie caved first. "Mary... we can't," he said.
"Why not?" asked Darci.
Toby winced. Maybe it was cowardly of him, but he was really grateful that Douxie was the one talking about this. Because it was not nice, as Nana would have put it. Even if it was probably not nicer to Douxie, who'd been the one who knew Morgana while she was still... nice.
"Because there are certain things that have to happen," Douxie said, clearly speaking carefully, "if we're ever to get back home."
Mary and Darci looked at each other.
Mary bit. "What aren't you telling us?" she asked, hand on her hip.
Douxie's gaze leveled on the amber necklace she wore before he looked back in her eyes. "Arthur and Morgana are going to have a fight," he said softly. "One that pits them against one another and changes the courses of wars, armies... and history."
He couldn't fix this.
The only thing he could fix was.... Well, maybe.
He couldn't stop Arthur from taking Morgana's hand and life, not if they wanted to repair the timeline and return home. He couldn't stop Excalibur from being shattered. He couldn't stop the war to come.
But maybe he could fix the Heart of Avalon.
Douxie's mind spun wide, seeking plans, possibilities. Krel knew, from the inside, how Akiridions healed. And Douxie knew how to heal from the outside. They were both wizards; there had to be a way to combine their forces and....
"Oh no," said Jim. "I know that look." He leveled a finger at Douxie. "No," he said, the weight of command in his voice.
Douxie looked up at him. "But--"
"No," Jim repeated. He sighed, wiped a hand down his face, his other arm still supporting Claire. "I'm exhausted. Claire is wiped. And don't try to say you're a hundred percent either," he warned.
"But--"
Jim drew a deep breath. "Mom always says, fasten your own mask first."
That clearly made no sense to the Akiridions, but most of the human teenagers looked like they understood the analogy.
"Ooh, yeah. You gotta take care of yourself first," Toby said, nodding sagely. "Otherwise you end up with all kinds of burnout, and then you just can't help anybody."
"Besides," Krel added in more practically, "you haven't taught the rest of us how to heal yet. So you have do that first, before we can fix anything, Douxie."
Krel... had a point, Douxie admitted to himself. If nothing else, to work a healing on the Heart of Avalon, he'd need to teach Krel how to heal too. So he might as well teach Mary and Claire and in theory the others as well, even if their magic hadn't sparked and awoken yet. But the more wizards he had working on this, the higher their chances of pulling it off. Because Merlin was not an option, and Morgana, he mourned, was about to not be one either.
And he needed to let Claire recover. Merlin had taken back the key to the Heart, snatched it right out of Douxie's hand; the only way any of them would be getting in contact with that heartstone again was via shadow portal.
"All right," he said, rubbing the back of his hand against his eyes. "We wait. But--"
He was cut off by a pounding on the door.
"Ooh, fuzzbuckets," Hisirdoux whimpered behind her as Callista peered around the corner. The hallways were dark--by human standards--and the humans were acting like a kicked-over wasp's nest.
"Huh," she murmured as she eased back out of sight. "Wonder what's up." She thought a minute, then her gaze landed on the apprentice wizard's spell bracelet. Her eyes narrowed. "Okay, I've got an idea."
The apprentice straightened. His cat/dragon/whathaveyou looked more dubious. "And what might that be?" he asked.
"You," she told Hisirdoux, "put a magic leash and collar on me. That way it looks like I'm your prisoner. We can walk right through that way, and find the other you."
Hisirdoux had stilled at the phrase "leash and collar." "I... don't really like leashes and collars," he said faintly. Archie's tail lashed, more expressive than his fuzzy face.
Callista didn't have time to deal with teenage trauma right now. "Well, it's either that or we give up on finding your other self," she told him bluntly. "Anyway, we're not putting the collar on you."
"That doesn't always matter," he muttered, fidgeting with his bracelet.
"It's for five minutes," she argued. "Just 'til we get clear of this lot." She jerked her head toward the throng of knights clustered down the hallway.
The cat-dragon looked at her, then touched a paw to his boy's foot. "Sometimes," he said gently, "needs must. You know this, Douxie."
Hisirdoux looked mulish. "All right," he said sullenly. "I'm not happy about this," he warned.
"Wouldn't expect you to be, kid," Callista told him. "Now go ahead; collar me." She spread her arms wide, inviting the magic.
He scrolled slowly through the runes hovering blue above his bracelet, finally picking out one. He cast it at her with the same kind of gesture that a farmer broadcasting seed in a field might use.
The light blue specks that emerged from his hand coalesced into a glowing blue collar around her throat, and a thin blue chain leading from them back to his hand.
"Nice work, kid," she told him, because Callista might be many things, but a dummy wasn't among them. She could tell when someone needed a pep talk.
"Thanks."
She peeked around the corner again. The knights were still there. "All right, let's go." And led the way.
Lancelot held out his arm and the Lady Morgana rested her own on it, like she was one of the more usual of Camelot's ladies. Like he had never seen her use her great magicks in defense of the realm, or to amuse her brother's court.
Like he had never seen her lend her vast power to the sole purpose of making Queen Guinevere laugh.
His heart panged in his chest, even as the king's might, at the memory.
The queen had been everything, and despite her love of magic, Lancelot could not find it within himself to criticize Arthur's purge of magical creatures.
Not when one had stolen Guinevere from them.
He tensed, torn from his thoughts, when he saw a troll saunter around the corner. Casually. Like it belonged within the walls of Camelot.
"Troll!" he barked, drawing his sword.
"Wait wait wait!" Merlin's scrawny apprentice hurried out in front of the troll. He held in his hands some sort of magical leash, leading to a collar that Lancelot just now noticed. "She's fine! She's with me!"
"And what," Lancelot bit out, "is a troll doing within these halls?"
"She's, ah... she's...."
The troll snorted. "What, haven't you ever heard of hunting by scent?"
Agravaine snorted. "Like a dog?" he asked derisively.
The troll tapped by the side of her broad, flat stone nose. "Exactly like."
"We're, ah, we're hunting for the ones who broke the Heart of Avalon," the apprentice babbled, his cat by his feet.
On Lancelot's arm, Morgana tensed, then relaxed. Lancelot glanced at her. "Hunting them down by their magical scent, no doubt," the woman said with an airy gesture. "On Merlin's orders?"
"Yes, exactly!" the teenager said gratefully.
Lancelot's eyes narrowed. He didn't trust the boy, nor Morgana either. But Merlin's word was law, second only to Arthur's, and if these two were telling the truth.... "Keep to it," he said. "I expect results, boy."
"You and Merlin both," the apprentice muttered. A few of Lancelot's men sniggered at that. "I mean, yes sir, Sir Lancelot!" He saluted sharply.
"Onward," Lancelot directed his troop. "The king awaits Lady Morgana." He cast his gaze keenly at the boy as they passed; a warning.
Merlin's raggedy little apprentice had better not be up to anything.
Hisirdoux waited until Sir Lancelot and his men rounded the corner before sagging in relief. Somehow they'd pulled it off.
"Very commendable," Archie said to Callista.
She snorted. "You just gotta tell people what they want to hear."
Hisirdoux brightened. "Like with Lad Of Fortune," he said, straightening. Pandering to the audience was something he knew, after all.
Archie rolled his eyes at the comparison. "This way," he said, and walked forward, the pair of them following him. Apparently he had the same kind of connection with Hisirdoux's future self as he did with Hisirdoux. Which made sense when Hisirdoux stopped to think about it. They were both the same person, after all, and Archie was their familiar! Or they were his.
Hisirdoux wondered if it was strange for Archie to suddenly have two of him to look after and mind. Though his older self really hadn't seemed to need much minding. Unless you asked Merlin, he was sure. Merlin hadn't seemed terribly keen on his older self, though he was sure that was merely because of the time travel, which always threw rocks in the water wheel.
It was only a few minutes more before Archie stopped and sat down in front of a door. "He's in there," he reported.
Oh good. His older self hadn't gone and flung himself off the highest tower as he'd threatened.
...Yet, Hisirdoux added after a second's consideration.
Callista pounded her fist on the door. "Hey! Open up and let us in!"
Toby threw open the door in a flash, his eyes wide. "Dude!" he said, staring up at Callista.
"Ah, hello." Douxie's younger self waggled his fingers. "Can we come in?" He glanced over his shoulder and his voice dropped to a whisper, one laced with a bit of fear. "There're knights out here."
"Hey, what's wrong with knights?" Steve demanded as Toby reverentially got out of the way of Callista--of the first Trollhunter--and let their party in, closing and barring the door behind them.
"Plenty," said Douxie, "when their first, second, and last impressions of you are all 'magic-user; extremely dangerous; kill on sight'."
"Were the knights with Morgana?" asked Aja. In the room beyond her, Jim was laying Claire down on the bed. Mary and Darci were fussing at her.
Younger-Douxie was nodding. "Oh yes. They said the king wanted to see her."
"Hmm." Older-Douxie's head thunked back against the stone wall. "Odds are even. Either he's going to confine her to the dungeon, which will go oh so well because even the best of Merlin's enchantments can't block a shadow portal, or time's going to right itself and this is going to be their big drag-down knock-out fight that's going to lead to Morgana losing her hand."
"What the fuck?" demanded Callista.
Younger-Douxie and Archie's eyes both went big and round like owls'. "What," said the dragon flatly, even as the sorcerer's apprentice asked the same thing in a horrified whisper.
Younger-Douxie whipped around to stare at the door. "We can't-- I should--" He took a single step toward the door.
Jim's hand came down on his shoulder. "Don't," said Toby's bestie, shaking his head.
"But--"
Douxie sighed and pushed himself to his feet. "They've been at loggerheads for too long," he informed his younger self and Archie. "Something will break, one way or another. It's got to." His mouth formed a line. "Trust me," he told himself, "I would love nothing better than a peaceful resolution to their basic philosophical differences, but... sometimes you can't get what you want." He looked wistful.
Douxie wasn't just talking about Arthur and Morgana, Toby realized. He was also talking about himself and Merlin.
And there was nothing any of them could do about that either.
"You can't just--" began Callista.
Douxie looked tiredly at her. Like he'd had to explain things too many times already. Toby considered briefly what it must be like, having to let Morgana's hand get cut off and have her die, only to see her resurrected by the Arcane Order.
Like, what would it feel like if Toby had to let one of his... well, not one of his friends, but maybe one of the upperclassmen at school, go through something like that, or Nana wouldn't exist anymore?
He grimaced. "Come on," he said, hooking his arm through Callista's and pulling her toward the other bedroom in this suite. "I'll give you a quick rundown. To start with, we're from the future."
Her head whipped around to stare at him. "You're from the what?"
"Ah, I don't mean to be rude," said Younger-Douxie, his gaze on Jim. On Jim's circlet. "But... who are you?"
Jim smirked, and shifted to half-troll form.
Younger-Douxie's eyes widened and he took a step back, nearly tripping over his own feet. "You!"
"Wait." Callista, meanwhile, had stopped following Toby. She stepped toward Jim and poked him in the center of the chest with one finger. "I thought you were a troll!"
Jim shrugged. "I'm half troll?" he offered.
Her eyes narrowed. "How is that even possible?"
Jim rolled his eyes. "Magic," he, and half the room, chorused.
Callista blinked, sighed, and turned toward Toby. "Yeah, I'm gonna want that explanation, shorty."
Toby beamed.
"Varvatos wishes to go punch something," Krel's guardian muttered sullenly a few minutes after Toby and Callista returned, as they all settled in to wait out whatever was surely happening in Camelot's throne room. "Perhaps a nice dismemberment or two...."
Krel patted his arm consolingly. "I am sure you will get your chance soon."
"Dude." Toby turned to Jim. "When we get home, we should totally introduce Varvatos to pyrobligst!"
Jim's eyes widened. "That could be..."
"...Glorious," Toby finished the thought for him. The pair of them fist-bumped.
Varvatos' eyes narrowed. "And what, exactly, is this 'pie-row-bilge'?"
"Well, it's this game trolls play--" Toby started.
Krel paid attention just long enough to determine that it was an activity that held exactly no interest for him (though Aja and Zadra were both listening with engrossed expressions) before shifting over near the two Douxies, who both sat against the wall, Archie between them. The dragon was being petted by both wizards. Krel had never seen the pupils of his eyes blown so wide, not even during the Camelot Catnip Incident. He was doing a reasonable impression of a fuzzy black puddle. "Since Archie is not capable of being the brain cell at the moment..." he started.
Even if it were not for the dyed hair, he would have known which Douxie was "his" by the faint look of amusement on his face. The other wrinkled his nose up. "What's a brain 'cell'...?"
"I'll tell you when you're older," Krel's Douxie murmured to him.
Krel bit back a snicker at the way the younger Douxie started to nod, then looked indignant. "Anyhow," Krel said, taking charge of the conversation again. "It occurs to me that you and perhaps I need music to properly fuel our magic."
The younger Douxie's eyes widened and he seemed on the verge of asking a question. Archie... well. Krel wasn't sure he was even listening at the moment.
"Problem with that." Douxie tapped at his vambrace. "I haven't got my Spellcaster, and you, as far as I know, left your lute back in Arcadia."
"Yes, but." Krel's eyes slid over to Douxie's younger self. "I was going to suggest asking if we could borrow an instrument or two."
The younger Douxie sat up straighter at that. "You want to borrow my lute...?"
"We will return it intact," Krel assured him.
The boy started to nod, then his eyes fastened on something and he started shaking his head instead.
Turning to see what he was looking at, Krel realized he was staring at the barred door.
"I don't want to go back out there," the boy murmured. "Not if... not if the knights are all riled up." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Not if the king is going to execute Lady Morgana."
"We'll go with you!" Eli said, stepping up. "Me and Krel! We can protect you."
Douxie's eyes went from Eli's face to Krel's.
"Well," said Krel, sighing, "there have to be some advantages to being a prince."
"We'll protect you," Eli swore.
Which, Krel thought that that vow was a bit rich coming from someone who couldn't even run Coach Lawrence's beloved mile (four laps around the outside track) in PE. But he would sooner have been stepped on by a Gvarlak than say so to Eli.
"A-all right," younger Douxie said. He struggled to his feet.
"We will be so quick," Krel promised. He laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "In, out, and back before you even know it, lute in hand."
"Well, brother," said Morgana as she stood before Arthur in his throne, knights ringing her in a semicircle, "what have I done now to warrant your displeasure?"
His fist tensed by his side. "The question," her little brother said, "is what haven't you done, Morgana?"
Ah, this was to be one of those trials, she thought. The ones where the king had already decided on the verdict, and woe betide any who gainsaid him. "A vast sea of possibilities," she commented. "Perhaps you might illuminate me as to the specific charges?"
He flung his hand wide, gesturing at the sconces which stood flameless on the walls. "Camelot has lost her power," said the king. "And trolls entered our banquet room, brawling, through a shadow portal very like yours, sister."
"I was sitting at the table with you!" Morgana protested. "How could I have done any of that?"
"Your witchcraft works in dark ways," muttered her brother.
She remembered when she had first learned to make magical constructs, and how he and Gwen had spent a sun-drenched afternoon chasing them, begging her for more, more!
That summer seemed so far away now.
Her loss, and her anger, burned so cold. "Ah, yes," she said, barely managing not to grit her teeth together. "Your Camelot. Built by a wizard. Maintained by a wizard. And yet magic is evil!"
Arthur actually rocked back a step at the venom in her voice. But he rallied. "Only magic that is controlled is safe."
"Under whose control?" Morgana demanded. "Yours? You can't even light a candle with a spell, let alone wield the arcane forces of the universe!"
Arthur's face darkened. "I have the blessings of the Lady of the Lake," he snapped back. "Nimue chose me to guide this land to peace. And yet you fight me at every turn, sister!"
"Chose you?" Morgana laughed. "You were born of magic, little brother, and yet you spurn it at every turn." Long-buried anger was welling up in her now, poison and the pain of betrayal dripping from her lips. "It shouldn't surprise me. Gods know there was no other way our mother would ever have congress with your father!"
"Morgana--"
She ignored his warning tone. "You are the child of rape and deceit, Arthur. Your father's treachery toward his own loyal vassals runs thick in your veins. I should never have trusted you to be better than him."
The knights shifted at that, their armor creaking, a few uncomfortable murmurs escaping them. Her words were part of the dark shadows under Camelot's foundations that no one ever spoke about.
Good, thought Morgana viciously. Let them be uncomfortable.
If Camelot could be destroyed by speaking the truth... well, then, perhaps Merlin's creation should fall after all.
Arthur, in turn, had paled. "You speak what you know not of, Morgana."
"I was there," she said spitefully. "You... you weren't even born yet, Arthur."
"Our mother--"
"Do not speak to me of our mother," she spat at him. "You never even knew her. She was my mother!" Pain poured through her voice. "Gorlois was my father! And their marriage a strong one! Until your father's wars drove them apart, killed a good man, and turned my mother into the king's whore!"
Arthur gritted his teeth, his hand fisting. "Do not speak so to your king," he growled.
"I shall speak all the truth I like!" she cried. "What has silence bought me but handmaiden after handmaiden, promising young sorceresses all, being driven away because you could only see threat, not potential?" Fury boiled through her. "Cutting me away from those of my own kind. Isolating me! What in that was kindness, brother?"
Now his eyes were calm, glassy with religion. "I am my sister's keeper," he refuted with all the weight of a man who would not be moved.
"As I am, obviously, not my brother's," she spat back. "You were to be a child of destiny. Merlin's greatest creation, the savior of magickind. But clearly," she said icily, "he failed."
"My lady," said Lancelot, daring to lay hands upon her, "consider your words--"
She cast him aside with a wave of power; he crashed, in a clatter of armor, into a wall. The knights around her stared, then drew weapons all.
Morgana cared not, boiling with magic. "You let Gwen's death poison you," she told her brother. "You turned against the very things she loved--"
"Do not speak her name," her brother warned, his visage dark.
Morgana laughed, high and shrill. "Do not speak it? I knew her before you did," she said. "Before Lancelot did. I loved her first!"
"I, uh, I don't think we should be watching this," Eli murmured, his fingers tight on the doorway they were all peeking around.
"Oh, this is bad," whimpered younger-Douxie. "This is very bad."
"We agree on that," said Krel, his eyes wide. Within the great hall, Morgana was wreathed in golden power. He could practically feel it thrumming off of her. And King Arthur had drawn his sword. "And I had thought Mama and Papa dealing with the Unkite delegation went poorly...."
But none of the three of them seemed able to tear themselves away from the scene they absolutely should not be witnessing.
"Morgana," growled the king, "you will obey me!"
"Obey?" she scoffed. "A stripling like you, without a drop of magic in your veins?"
"I am your king!"
"You are a child!"
"Snooping foreigners, eh?" a voice suddenly spoke up behind the three of them, making Krel jump and the other two yelp. They all spun to see a short, stocky knight standing there, glaring at them. "Into the hall with the lot of you," he said, drawing his blade.
"You- you wouldn't," Eli protested.
"But, Sir Galahad!" Douxie yelped.
His glare intensified. "I have no patience for spies, boy, and Merlin's patronage can only protect you so far. In!"
"I do not think he is joking," Krel said, eyeing the edge of the knight's sword. It looked very sharp.
"O-okay," said Eli nervously, adjusting his optical lenses. He backed slowly into the hall, more wary of the one knight who could reach them than he was of the roomful of them he was approaching.
Krel bit his lip. Weighed the possibilities. None seemed optimal. But he did not want the other two to get hurt, so surely doing what the knight wanted was, for now, the best path?
"My king!" Sir Galahad bellowed, his voice cresting over the shouting match the king and his sister were having. "I've caught some spies!"
"I'm not a spy," younger Douxie protested.
Morgana smiled. It seemed poisonously sweet on her face. "Of course you are, little Douxie," she cooed. "The instant you get out of here, you're going to run and tell your master all about this, aren't you?" She cast an acid look on her brother. "Your master, who creates monsters."
"I am not the monster here, Morgana," Arthur hissed. "That is you!"
She tossed her head back, long red braid catching the air. "I? I think not. I am not the one who breaks his own word to leave the Wild Wood to the trolls. I am not the one who slays children and innocents to assuage my own loss." Her eyes burned bright gold. "I am not the one who ordered the murder of my own child, that I might stay on the throne!"
That drew a step back and an audible gasp from all the knights. Krel eyed them, wondering what was going on.
The king's sword raised. "You know not what you speak of--"
"I speak of your guilt," Morgana spat. "Of a filicide, son of a rapist who dares clothe himself in glory and call himself a king!" Her hand made a swirling gesture. A portal, like one of Claire's, appeared. She reached into it, drawing out a metal cylinder. Almost instantly white crystals sprang out from either end.
Krel's eyes widened as black spilled through the crystals like ink through water. "Oh no," he said, recognizing the object. Claire had wielded it at the Battle of the Bands and he had heard enough of its backstory since to realize this was a very bad thing.
"What is that?" whispered Eli.
"The Skathe-Hrün," Krel said, eyes darting around to see if there was a way he could get the three of them out of here.
"Morgana's staff," Douxie whispered at almost the same moment. His face was pale. "Oh fuzzbuckets--"
"You dare draw arms against me?!" Arthur raged.
"Against a fool and a tyrant?" Morgana shot back. "Gladly." She raised the staff, humming with power, and leveled it at him. "Goodbye, Arthur."
"Lady Morgana, no!" Lancelot tackled her from the side even as Arthur swung.
Blood splashed.
The staff clattered.
A cry raised from half a hundred voices--
But not Morgana's. She knelt, her expression drawn with shock, staring down at her severed left hand.
Blood dripped from Excalibur, onto the Round Table that was recessed into the floor. Unwittingly, Krel watched as it ran through the grooves and carvings, staining the kingdom.
Arthur stared at his maimed sister, almost seeming unbelieving of what he had done.
Her eyes raised to his. "Brother?" she asked softly, in the voice of a child.
"Morgana, I--" He seemed on the verge of an apology. He reached out his hand to her.
Her green gaze latched on that hand. For an instant, Krel thought she might take it, but...
Her gaze darkened in an instant. "Never," Morgana spat, and snatched up her staff, surging to her feet. She swayed with blood loss, but managed to summon a shadow portal nonetheless.
And fell through it.
Into darkness.
Unbelieving silence fell on the room.
Morgana was gone.
"No!" cried Arthur, and hit his sword against the stone of the floor. Against the Round Table.
Excalibur shattered.
"Come on," Krel growled, grabbing Douxie by the sleeve and Eli by the armor and ruthlessly hauling them out of the throne room while the knights were gaping and distracted. We need to be gone before anyone can get the bright idea to punish us for witnessing that!
Author's Note: Douxie's line about "extremely dangerous; kill on sight" is, of course, from the first How to Train Your Dragon movie.