[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 172/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 3rd May, 2024
Morgana turned her new hand over, marveling at it. It was no metal construction like Sir Lancelot's prosthetic, but made instead of a smooth green stone that seemed almost to glow from within. It was elegant, almost weightless, and warm to the touch. And....
She summoned magic with the hand, delighted to find it channeled her power just as easily as her flesh one. She laughed as she blasted the remnant of a skull.
The small green woman who had woken her from death laughed also. Magic crawled over her hand too, in the shape of an insect. "Isn't it fun?" she asked. "How do you feel?"
Morgana concentrated and called her staff to her hand. Though it had surely been lost to the sea as she had, it reappeared in her hand instantly. "Renewed," she said. And it was true. The festering mix of anger, shock, confusion, and pain that had led to her escape portal not landing her someplace safe, but instead above the unforgiving sea... all that was gone. As though washed away by the waves.
Or by the power of an enchantress far more powerful than she.
"You," she said, recognizing her. "I saw you as a child in the Wild Wood." It was a fond memory; golden eyes looking right at her, seeming to dismiss Gwen and Arthur as they played hide-and-seek. But a shriek of laughter from her beloved friend had distracted Morgana, and when she'd looked back, the tiny green... sorceress? creature? goddess?... had been gone.
"Nari has a habit of playing with humans," another, harsher voice broke in, contemptuous. Morgana whipped around, heart suddenly pounding in her chest. Another figure, with a bird's skull for a head and a cloak made of raven feathers, seemed to glare at her. It held a staff glowing red with power, that was pointed at Morgana. "Despite my warnings," that figure growled.
"It survived the reincarnation," a third, ghostly, voice murmured. Freezing air swirled up behind Morgana. She whirled again, staring as yet another figure, this one clad in funereal black, with the pale complexion of a corpse, appeared behind her. "Surprising."
Her heart hammered. She was powerful among humans, even among other wizards. But she suddenly realized how very outclassed she was by the entities around her. Two of whom definitely did not seem to look upon her kindly.
"I told you she could, Skrael," Morgana's savior said cheerfully. "So old," she chided, as if to herself, "and they still haven't learned manners."
Manners which were human things, Morgana interpreted. And as she was given the names of the three around her, her eyes widened. Nari of the Eternal Forest; Skrael of the North Wind; Bellroc, Keeper of the Flame. She knew those names, had read of them in Merlin's tomes. The Arcane Order. Primordial gods, unrivaled by any other.
They could swat her like an insect, and nothing Morgana could do would delay them more than a minute.
But they did not seem to want to destroy her, not again. They wanted her to do something for them.
And when Skrael seethed about mankind destroying the balance between the mundane and the magical... oh, that, Morgana understood all too well. She understood what they wanted.
They sought an instrument.
She had no power to refuse them, and they did not seek her consent in any case.
Nor, truth given, would she have refused them. Arthur had severed their bonds of kinship as surely as he had severed her hand. Without the need for propriety, without the weight of a promise to a dead mother holding her down....
Morgana had done as Ygraine had asked, until it had cost her her very life.
Oaths given to the dying last only until your own death, after all.
Magic older than Camelot, older than Merlin, perhaps as old as the bones of the world itself, wrapped around her. Girding her with armor as their words girded her with new purpose. She was to be a champion of the magical folk, of the magic itself, and tear down the pious, sanctimonious hypocrisy of Camelot and her king. Then, and only then, would magic again be free.
Morgana knelt before her new masters, who had given her the greatest gift she had ever known in exchange for becoming a weapon in their arsenal. "I accept this gift," she said, "my lords."
"All right." Douxie capped his marker. "We've got our go list, looks like."
"You're sure this is writing?" asked Callista. "It looks like gobbledygook to me."
"I'm sure." Jim smiled at her. "Future writing."
"Hey, that means this is an uncrackable code, by twelfth century standards!" Toby said, gesturing at the whiteboards.
"Yeah, or it means that Callista can't read," Claire rebutted. "Douxie, you said time travel rewires the language centers of our brains, right?"
"Temporarily," he emphasized.
"So are we writing in modern English, or is this twelfth century Welsh?"
"Ahh...." Douxie blinked, then uncapped his marker and wrote something quick. "Can you read that?" he asked Callista.
"'King Arthur is a--'" She snickered. "Dare you to say that to his face."
"No thank you," the wizard told her. "I like having a head. Looks like writing is a separate linguistic function," he told Claire.
"Uncrackable code!" cheered Toby, his arms raised high as he did a little dance.
"Well, that makes sense," said Eli. "After all, writing uses a different part of the brain than talking."
Krel lit up. "So we could test what parts of the human - and Akiridion, I suppose - mind are affected, and how, by time travel!"
Eli practically vibrated. "We could write papers about this! And now I even know about magic publications that would accept them."
"Yeah, that or sci-fi mags, Pepperjack," put in Steve.
A knock sounded on the door.
Everyone froze.
Jim gestured at Aja, indicating the door. She blinked, then got what he meant. "Ah-- who is it?" she called, her voice a little higher and more nervous than usual.
"It is Sir Lancelot, my lady," came the answer. "King Arthur has requested your presence, if it pleases you."
Aja turned wide eyes on Douxie.
"Ask him for just a minute," the wizard hissed.
"Just a moment!" Aja sang obediently.
"Okay. Okay." The wizard's hand was in his hair, pulling. "The rest of us need to not be here. You go to Arthur, see what he wants--"
"I am with you." Zadra stepped up by Aja's shoulder. Frowned. Reactivated her transduction. "He will not lay a hand upon you."
"Me too!" Steve waved his hand in the air like he was trying to be picked for dodge ball.
"Right. Ah, Claire, can you make a portal back to the heartstone?" asked Douxie. "The rest of us can work on trying to fix it."
She nodded sharply and raised her hands, a dark portal flickering to life. "Let's go."
The door opened, and Lady Zadra emerged. She looked suspiciously up and down the corridor before turning back into the room and gesturing, allowing her charge to appear. Princess Aja emerged from her guardian's shadow, clad today in an elegant red-and-black checked gown that echoed her traveling garb of the previous day. Though it was rather scandalously short, showing off her legs nearly to the knee. And those legs were clad in sturdy blue leggings, akin to the ones she had worn before, and the curious cloth shoes that provided little protection but did seem to be marvelously tailored toward grip. Lady Zadra, in turn, wore practical leather armor, neatly tailored to her form. And behind them came....
Lancelot sighed. "Squire Steve," he said.
"At your service, Sir Lancelot my man!" The youth saluted.
Well, he supposed it was all right that the squire had been in her highness' chambers, with Lady Zadra to chaperone. Actually, the glowing love in his eyes when Steven looked at the princess rather reminded Lancelot of his own undying admiration for Queen Guinevere. Which, so long as the admiration remained only that, remained chaste, was a noble virtue for any knight to pursue.
Lancelot indicated their direction of travel with one gauntleted hand. The king had, sensibly, chosen not to receive the princess in the throne room, where servants were still scrubbing Morgana's blood out of the stones, but on the castle's ramparts, that they might survey the land together. "His majesty invites you to join him on the battlements."
"What's a battlement?" asked Squire Steve behind them.
The giant heartstone reminded Claire of the Pacific Ocean at night: dark, eerie, and desolate. The little flickers of light here and there along the fracture lines were like the algae bloom that lit up just along the shoreline, where the water lapped the sand.
It was cool, raising the hairs on the back of her neck, and creepy. And while normally she did creepy - shadow witch, after all! - Claire didn't find this dead heartstone any more reassuring than she had Arcadia's.
At least there aren't any zombie Gumm-Gumms trying to kill us this time.
"Well," said Toby after a minute, "at least it's only mostly dead."
Claire couldn't help the giggling snort that burst out of her. Jim grinned at her, showing all his trollish sharp teeth.
"Oh no," said Krel, "not that movie again."
"Ah, c'mon." Toby elbowed Krel in the side. "You know you liked it."
"What's a... 'moo-vie'?" asked Callista.
"Uhh." Darci and Mary looked at one another. "Kind of like a play?" Darci offered.
"Oh. Okay." A beat of silence. Then, "What's a play?"
Mary's eyes grew wide. "Okay, girl," she said, her hand on Callista's arm. "We've got to catch you up on culture."
"Culture later," Varvatos reprimanded. "First, we must repair this heartstone." He glowered into the dark distance. "It is not much like the one in Arcadia," he reported, "and Varvatos finds that discomfiting."
"Well, far be it for anything to discomfit the great Varvatos Vex," Douxie said, his words light and teasing. But his tone and expression gave that away to be a lie as he, too, looked into the distance. His fingers were tapping repeatedly against one another, Claire noticed. She opened her mouth to ask about that, but Jim caught her fingers and her gaze. He shook his head. Let it be.
She tilted her head at him, letting Jim know she would be asking about that later, but dropped it for now. "So. Healing lessons first?" she asked Douxie. Who was still holding onto his younger self's lute. Which was probably for the best, she decided after thinking about it. Since Douxie needed some way to join music to magic, and Merlin hadn't made him his staff-turned-magical-guitar yet....
"Right. Right." Douxie chewed his bottom lip, then shook his head. "I've no idea how to go about this, but the first thing I know we're going to need is light." So saying, he drew several small orbs of pale blue light out of his bracelet and set them hovering in the air around everyone.
It made an island of illumination in the middle of the sea of darkness, which was not at all creepy.
Biting her bottom lip, Claire imitated her teacher and set several magic lights of her own going. They looked more like hovering flames or will-o-wisps than Douxie's, and they were darker, not glowing nearly as brightly, but as the saying went, every little bit helped.
Douxie flashed her a smile, then stowed the lute across his back. "All right. First thing, I guess, is to heal, you need something in need of healing." A knife appeared in his hand, so quickly Claire wasn't sure if it was by magic or sleight of hand.
"Uh, Douxie..." said Eli.
He got a smile too. "Pay attention, padawans," said the wizard, right before using his knife on the pad of his own thumb. He tucked the knife through his belt - had that sheath always been there? - as blood welled up.
Callista's pupils contracted. So, interestingly, did Jim's. But where Callista stood rock still, Jim actually leaned back, away from the injury.
"Gather 'round," Douxie instructed, "and pay attention to what you feel. An injury is something out of tune with the body's natural order. To heal it, you have to listen, and restore it back to that order." His other hand, glowing blue, waved over his cut finger, an expression of concentration on his face. He licked the blood off his thumb and showed it to them. No sign of the wound remained.
"Whoa," murmured Callista.
Krel's eyes narrowed. "Give me that knife," he said.
Douxie handed the blade over.
Krel hefted it, studying his own human hand.
Toby gaped. "Wait, dude, you're not even going to sterilize it first?"
Krel grinned. "I am Akiridion. Anything that could live on a human, cannot live on me." He sliced open his own thumb, somewhat more enthusiastically than Douxie had.
Blue light dripped to the ground, making faint glowing puddles where the drops hit the Heart of Avalon.
"Prince Krel!" Varvatos grabbed for him.
"Okay, that may have overdone it a little," Krel admitted, handing the knife to Varvatos instead of accepting being fussed over. "Ow."
"Okay." Douxie was right in front of Krel. "You've got this," he said, hand over Krel's uninjured one as it hovered above the wound. Their eyes met; Douxie smiled. "Find the back beat, DJ Kleb," he said. "Make the music."
Krel drew a shaky breath and nodded, closing his eyes. His breathing steadied. He seemed to be listening for something. His hand moved. Hesitated. Moved again.
"You can do this," Douxie murmured. "I believe in you."
Blue light, more aquamarine than Douxie's, shone out along the line of the cut, which healed itself up from the inside, like a zipper was being pulled shut, sealing up the injury.
Douxie's grin was wide enough to split his face. "You did it!" he crowed, patting Krel on the back. "Well done!"
"Yes, I can heal a squishy body form now," Krel said dryly.
"A crystalline form," agreed Varvatos, "will be much different."
"Still, this is a start," Douxie argued. "One step closer to the goal. And we can practice here as long as we like."
Claire snorted. "Yeah, Merlin's probably being digested by Nimue right now, and no one else has got the key, right? So we're safe here until we go rescue his high and mightiness."
"Eventually," Krel pointed out, "my sister will run out of delay tactics with that Arthur king."
"Um, question!" Eli raised his hand reflexively before remembering that he wasn't in class, didn't need to. He snatched it back down, face burning. He hoped no one would think he was too much of a geek. "Do we know that Akiridions and heartstones are even the same kind of crystals? Because, like, different gems react differently to things, so what might heal an Akiridion might not do the same for a heartstone."
Toby's eyes widened. "Whoa, good point," he said.
"Huh." Krel looked at Varvatos. "I did not have the time or the need to do intensive research on the properties of heartstones...."
"I think," Douxie said slowly, "that Gaylen likely would have based the Atlanteans' new forms on the Atlantis heartstone, given his obsession with it. But I can't be sure."
"And it's not like heartstones get up and walk around and, I don't know, think," said Jim dubiously. "So clearly there's gotta be some difference."
"Say no more!" Toby held his hand up before himself. "Doux, can I get a whiteboard and marker?"
"Uh, certainly." The wizard fiddled with his magic bracelet and produced one of each. "Can I ask why?"
Toby grinned wide. "While you and Jimbo were gallivanting around the sixth century, I was working my way through more volumes of Gems and Geodes."
Douxie's eyes widened. "Wait, you mean--"
Toby uncapped the marker with a pop! "I mean, I hit volumes eleven through fifteen, which cover heartstones. So I can diagram out their crystalline structure and properties for Krel here, who can then figure out how they're different from Akiridion biology."
"So if I can figure out how to heal one," Krel said excitedly, "we can all theoretically figure out how to heal the other!"
"Bingo!" Toby said, pointing at Krel with the marker.
"Tobes, you're brilliant," said Jim.
"A fact which I don't hear nearly often enough," the second Trollhunter agreed, before turning to his whiteboard and beginning to diagram.
"I need to read Gems and Geodes," Eli said plaintively.
"Do not worry," said Krel, dropping a now-healed hand on Eli's shoulder. "I am absolutely sure Blinky will lend you those books once we return to our proper time."
"All right," said Douxie. "Claire, Mary, anyone else who wants to give healing a go, over here. Krel, you're with Toby."
Hisirdoux sat on the shore, head in hand, watching the crackling flames of the fire Archie had made. He sighed, bored. Though not bored enough to engage the stone guardians who guarded Lady Nimue's home. They always jeered at him and made fun of him, and he could never figure out how to respond in any kind of timely manner. But if he ignored them, they always eventually left off. Eventually.
"I wonder what everyone else is doing right now?" he asked. "I wish I'd brought my lute, Arch."
"Oh, to make more lousy music!" one of the stone guardians mocked.
"Like you've got such a lovely voice yourself, rockhead!" the other rebutted his partner.
"I'm sure they're having more fun than I am," Hisirdoux continued, trying to ignore the taunts.
Archie stretched and yawned. "Oh, I wouldn't be sure of that," he said. "It can't be easy, being in the wrong century and having broken the Heart of Avalon."
"Yeah, but still," Hisirdoux argued. He sighed and looked toward the cave he wasn't allowed to enter. "Master Merlin's been gone a long time."
"His negotiations with Nimue always take a while, you know that," Archie reminded him.
Hisirdoux sighed. "Yeah, I know," he agreed.
A moment later, he couldn't help the whine: "I'm bored, Arch!"
"You think you're bored?" one of the stone guardians called. "We're the ones who have to sit here and keep an eye on you! I can't wait to go back to sleep."
Jim did not like being the one who couldn't do anything. Every time he'd been injured, he'd hated being sidelined, and he hated it now. Even though he wasn't even injured at the moment. Well, he thought, looking down at the shard of Gaylen's Core embedded in his amulet, maybe I technically am. But the point remained that he could still fight!
But this wasn't something he could fight. This was a problem that had to be solved by magic, and knowledge, neither of which were his forte.
He could fight monsters (and had). He could do culinary diplomacy (and had). He could even forge a team and lead them to victory (multiple times).
But he couldn't heal a broken heartstone, and that limitation chafed.
Because no matter that he'd seen Douxie use magic to heal people multiple times. No matter that that blast of energy from Gaylen's core had hit him the same as everyone else. No matter any of that, he still couldn't sense what Douxie was teaching the others to do, let alone replicate it by moving his energy to rearrange the universe.
Jim wanted to growl. To pace.
"Hey." Callista laid a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"
Jim huffed out through his nose. "Just feeling helpless. And I hate feeling helpless."
"Oh, I am intimately acquainted with that feeling," she assured him. "I spent years in King Dickhead's prison, remember?"
"Yeah."
"Patience," said Varvatos, joining them, "is also a warrior's skill. Knowing how to wait is a mostly keenly cultivated skill. As is," he added, eyeing the wizards, "knowing when an opponent is one that cannot be torn limb from limb, and that the battlefield must be left to those with more useful attacks."
"My mom always talks about surgery and healing being like battles," Jim admitted. "I guess it's kind of true. Just, in some ways, a more... intellectual battle, I guess? Like chess."
Varvatos lit up. "Chess! A most glorious battle simulation!"
"What's chess?" asked Callista.
"Uh. Um." Jim cast around, looking for something they could use as a playing surface. "Come on, up there," he said, gesturing up the steps to the side. Those and the platform were made of rock, not heartstone, so he could totally carve a chessboard on them, and he saw pebbles he and Varvatos could use as pieces to demonstrate the rules of the game.
Teaching the future first Trollhunter about tactics had to be a good use of their time, right?
Mary figured out the healing thing before Claire did, and didn't bother trying to hide her gloat. It made sense, after all. They'd learned in Biology (definitely not in Health class!) that the human brain was like a web of tiny crackling electric connections all the time, so it made sense that the entire body had to have an electromagnetic field too, right? Which was why your body hair raised up whenever you got too close to power lines or a transformer: the interference from a more powerful electrical field bugging up your own.
And since part of what Mary was good at with magic was electronics, it was like she was a magnet all on her own, tugging the fields back into smooth humming harmony. Which was healing.
Darkness and rifts didn't fit as naturally into that kind of thing as controlled static electricity did.
"I am nailing this!" she declared smugly.
"Are you two gonna fight again?" asked Darci. Her gaze was on Claire, still working with Douxie to grasp the whole healing thing.
Mary scoffed. "Please. We don't fight. We just one-up one another."
"Constantly," Darci said. She turned her head to look at Mary. "Not gonna lie, Mare. It does get a little exhausting sometimes."
"Oh, like you're any better."
"Okay," said Krel, intently studying Toby's diagrams and comparing them mentally to what he knew of Akiridion biology. "I think the overlap is similar enough that this should work."
"Yeah, but first you've gotta figure out how to heal Akiridions," Toby pointed out. "Which means injuring one of you first. And, dude? I'm not volunteering to do that. Because if it's you or Aja, Varvatos and Zadra would kill me. And Varvatos and Zadra sure wouldn't let themselves get hurt either."
"You might be surprised," Krel said, thinking of how Varvatos had utterly submitted to the royal family's judgment to atone for his mistakes. How he had let himself be captured and held on Earth's moon.
Varvatos, Krel suspected, had a self-sacrificial streak entirely in line with Jim and Douxie's, just buried deeper.
...A self-sacrificial streak like Mama and Papa's....
Krel wrenched his thoughts away from that, because it was something he did not like to think about. And, Seklos and Gaylen willing, it was something which would not happen in this second timeline.
"Finding a volunteer is not a problem," he told Toby instead.
Toby side-eyed him. "Why do I have the feeling I'm not going to like whatever it is you're planning?"
"Because you're probably not," Krel answered, and dropped his transduction.
"Krel? Krel, don't--"
Krel took Douxie's knife by the hilt, and struck.
"Krel!"
Crystal flew.
Arthur stood on the ramparts, both hands braced on the pale gray limestone, looking out on the land that he had inherited from his father. He had spent years dragging it into an uneasy peace. The human lords had been difficult enough, but he had had Merlin, and Excalibur, and by extension the blessing of Lady Nimue. Her gifts had allowed him to find strong, valiant knights. To bind them in service to the crown, the land.
To make them one blade, united, pointed in the same direction.
And with his knights of the Round Table, he had forced even the most hostile of his subordinate lords to obey their king.
Merlin, he recalled, had long ago taught him a lesson about the Romans who had once ruled this land, and how in binding many sticks together to form a fasces, they had formed a stronger rod. How they had done something similar with their conquered peoples, binding them to form their nation.
Arthur had taken that lesson to heart, and used the persuasive voice God had granted him to, over time, bind even his human enemies to his cause.
He had brought peace to the land, and it, and its people, had prospered as a result.
Now the only enemies that remained were the inhuman monsters that dwelled in the Wild Woods, razing innocent villages and killing his people.
Gunmar the Black. His son Bular the Butcher. And their ferocious attack dog General Aaarrrgghh, currently a prisoner in Arthur's dungeons.
They might well be more than all the combined arms of Camelot could destroy. Yet they had to try.
The time had come....
A faint scrape of an armored foot against stone. A creaking, as of genuflection. "My king."
Arthur turned, to see Lancelot bowing. Beside him, Princess Aja inclined her head politely. The stern woman who was her bodyguard did nothing, looking side to side along the battlements, assessing, before looking at Arthur.
"Hey-ho, your royalness!" Squire Steven, behind them, saluted.
Lancelot winced.
"Princess Aja," Arthur invited. "Join me."
"Of course." She took her place by his side, looking out over the land.
She wasn't Gwen.
She would never be Gwen.
But Gwen would understand that he had to do this for Camelot.
Maybe.
Arthur drew a breath, trying to marshal his thought. It had been so easy with Gwen. They'd spun their plans together, painting castles in the clouds, and when the time had come, he'd simply asked her to marry him. She'd said yes with a laugh and no hesitation, none at all.
Nothing about Princess Aja was easy.
"It is beautiful land," she mused, the wind atop the ramparts stealing wisps of her hair. The sunlight caught them, turned their pale hue into light itself.
"It is," Arthur agreed. "Its people are worth defending from the darkness."
She looked at him. "There are many types of darkness," she observed, her tone level, giving nothing away.
He was tempted to wonder what she meant by that, what she implied, but--
"Marry me," he said, before he could change his mind.
"What?" she asked, even as Squire Steven blurted the very same word.
"My kingdom needs allies," Arthur explained. He gestured toward the Wild Woods. "Against the fell beasts that haunt our borders. My people need a queen. Take our strength and marry it to your own, Princess Aja. Let us preserve together that which is good and worthy."
Squire Steven was gaping like a fish. "But... but...!"
The princess did not speak for a moment. She was tall, and comely, but Arthur looked upon her and felt no desire whatsoever.
This would work, he swore to himself. Even if she insisted upon sharing his bed, he would make it work.
For Camelot.
"We arrived here yesterday," she said quietly, "and your men immediately imprisoned one of my closest friends."
"The troll," said Arthur.
"He is only sometimes a troll," said Aja. "And he is regardless one of the finest beings of my acquaintance."
"I apologize." Arthur bowed. "I should have trusted you, and your party."
"But you did not. You still do not." She turned away, gestured at the world outside Camelot. "I have spoken with one of the prisoners from your dungeons. She said her settlement was peaceable, that you attacked them."
"It was only a matter of time until they turned violent," Arthur insisted. "These beasts cannot be trusted--"
She cut him off with a sharp gesture. "Little boy," said Aja, "if you trust only humans, and only those with no magic, there is no place for us to meet. You want the power of my people? Well," she said, smiling, "that comes with all that comes with it."
A tap of her fingers at her bracelet, and Princess Aja's form shifted. She grew taller, her hair and skin blue. A second pair of arms emerged from her sides, giving her an appearance not unlike a spider.
"My king!" said Lancelot, drawing his sword. There was the sound of a scuffle, and his best knight being disarmed, but Arthur could not tear his eyes from the being before him.
"You see, we of Akiridionfiev," said the deceiver who had once been Princess Aja, "have not been human for a very long time."
"Monster," breathed Arthur, and drew his sword.
Author's Note: Toby joking about the heartstone only being mostly dead is, of course, a Princess Bride reference. Mary's theory of why humans get that hair-raising sensation around high electricity is not quite correct, but not wholly wrong either.