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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 4 years ago

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Chapter 50: Insecurity Abounds

Becoming The Mask

Why wasn't it working?!

Jim ducked the fire jets and somersaulted out of their path.

The Forge floor tilted, sending him sliding back to where he’d started from. He braced his feet against the pop-up turret that spewed fire and launched himself up to grab the next turret, the one that shot darts. He used the higher turret to swing himself back to level ground. Jim blocked the darts that followed him with his sword.

Gunmar’s Eye hadn’t had any noticeable effect on the Amulet yet.

Jim wove through and around the pendulum axes.

When he’d put the Heartstone chip in the Amulet, he’d been able to summon a knife in minutes.

He threw several knives at a target and used his sword to cut another in half.

Of course, he’d been actively hoping for a knife when he’d cleaved that stone, and he didn’t have any solid idea what this new one was supposed to do.

Jim made it to the Soothscryer and inserted his hand.

The Forge’s mechanisms shut down. The past Trollhunters did not draw him into the Void to advise him on how to find out the properties of a newly cleaved stone.

“Okay, let’s break down the possibilities,” Jim said out loud, in case the Ghost Council decided to chime in after all. He paced around the Soothscryer. “It’s supposed to help defeat Gunmar. It’s an eye, so … insight to his strategies? Can I spy on him through it somehow?”

Except, hadn’t Vendel said there was a stone for that already? A glimpse into your enemy’s mind …

Well, a backup would be helpful to have if it turned out they did the same thing.

“Or is it like those old superstitions where you can use a piece of somebody to harm them remotely?”

Some human cultures advised caution in disposing of one’s shed hair and nail clippings for that reason. Jim didn’t know if any other trolls had analogous beliefs, but since stone flesh was literally magical it did come up among Changelings sometimes.

“Or like magnets. Can he not touch me if I armour up with the Eye in the Amulet? Not like I can test that, or like it’ll be any use in letting me kill him.” And the Triumbric Stones were supposed to be key to defeating Gunmar, not having a stalemate with Gunmar.

“Or is the legend just inaccurate?”

Not the most appealing thought, but now that it had occurred to him it would be stressing Jim out. What if they put all that time and energy into tracking down and cleaving the Triumbric Stones and they didn’t even turn out to do anything?

“Any time you guys wanna weigh in on this,” he hinted at the previous Trollhunters.

Jim sat on the Forge floor, leaned back against the Soothscryer, and closed his eyes. The Soothscryer dropped into the floor, sending Jim sprawling back with a yelp.

“… Very funny.”

“Jim?” AAARRRGGHH entered the Forge. His steps were slow at first, and then Jim heard him hurrying across the bridge. “Jim okay?”

“Yeah, just, aggravated.” He knocked on his breastplate beside the Amulet. “Stricklander got Gunmar’s Eye for me, and Vendel taught me how to cleave it, but I – I can’t figure out what it does. I thought it would – would make me stronger, or tougher, or give me a new weapon, but – nothing! I’ve been training for hours and, and I haven’t been able to do anything I couldn’t before, and apparently the Ghost Council wants me to figure this out on my own, so they’re no help.”

“AAARRRGGHH help,” said the bigger troll decisively. He picked up the human-shaped Changeling and plopped him on his shoulders. “Jim tired. Sore. Anger-vated. Hard to think. Need rest.”

And he started carrying Jim out of the Forge.

“… Where are we going?”

“Library. Quiet there.”

AAARRRGGHH was tall, and his fur was thick. Jim was mostly hidden by it. He wasn’t sure anyone noticed him as AAARRRGGHH walked through Trollmarket.

Why was AAARRRGGHH carrying him? Jim had been sure AAARRRGGHH no longer trusted him that much, but here he was, giving Jim easy access to his scruff, his neck, all the vulnerable spots on his back …

Inside the library, AAARRRGGHH did not shrug Jim off. He simply settled into his usual corner – a space relatively clear of shelves, so AAARRRGGHH wouldn’t block access to anything important if he dozed off – and opened one of the larger, less delicate books to where it was bookmarked.

“Rest,” he said. “Talk when ready.”

It was always sort of comical to see AAARRRGGHH reading. Even the tallest and widest volumes, books that the humans had to leave on tables and turn pages of both-handed, looked small in his hands.

Jim climbed further up AAARRRGGHH’s back to read over his shoulder. AAARRRGGHH noticed, and repositioned the book so they could both see it better.

It was one that Blinky had written. Possibly one he’d written for AAARRRGGHH, considering the dimensions. It was about Blinky’s observations of human culture. The current chapter was about different gardens Blinky had seen around human homes, identifying some plants that were beneficial or harmful to trolls, and speculating on the purpose of the others.

They read in silence for a while.

“It’s just,” said Jim, when they reached the end of the chapter, “I can’t afford to mess this up.”

AAARRRGGHH moved the flattened strip of braided leather to its new place and closed the book.

“I can’t take Gunmar in a straight fight, which leaves assassination. So if there’s a specific weapon I need to kill him for real, and nothing else is gonna work, then I have to know how to use it. And I have to get it right the first time, because I probably won’t get a second shot.”

And because, if Jim failed and Gunmar realized a Changeling was behind the assassination attempt, then all the other Changelings still trapped in the Darklands were as good as dead.

“And … and if I can’t unlock the first Triumbric Stone, what does that say about my chances with the other two? And what if I messed up cleaving the Eye, so now I can’t unlock that stone, and Gunmar’s gonna live forever and it’s my fault?”

“He won’t,” said AAARRRGGHH. “Wizards live long, age slow, but can die.”

“… I don’t suppose you know any weaknesses of his?”

“Hm … Not good at trusting, so won’t have guards to sleep.”

“Huh. You know, I honestly never realized he slept? Like, logically he has to, but I’d never thought about it. I’ve only ever seen him on his throne or leading hunting parties. If the stones really do give me a new weapon, that would probably be my best shot at him.” Jim sighed and sagged. “If.”

“Maybe stones only work with all three,” AAARRRGGHH suggested.

“That could be it. I hope so.” Jim drummed his fingers against the Amulet. “I’m going to take the Eye out and train some more without it. Just in case it’s messing with my head. Would you hold onto it for me?”

“I help.” AAARRRGGHH shrugged. Jim nearly fell off his shoulder. “But Eye very small. Might leave with Blinky instead.”

“Where is Blinky, anyway?”

“Doing errands,” said AAARRRGGHH in trollish. “Haggling takes time.”

+=+

Tobias Domzalski, ‘Toby’, age 16, sophomore student at Arcadia Oaks Public High School. Orphaned age two, raised by paternal grandmother Nancy.

Closest friend, boy from across the street, Jim Lake; no close friends besides that, though occasional mentions of friendly acquaintanceship with classmate Eli Pepperjack.

Fond of geology, video games, stage magic. Natural predisposition to showmanship.

Family history of clinical depression. Personal history of emotional eating, being mocked by peers for braces and weight. Probable fear of rejection/abandonment.

Next appointment rescheduled to earlier date for unclarified reasons, severe enough for guardian to call in at 5:30 in the morning but not severe enough for guardian to feel immediate emergency response was needed.

“Good afternoon, Toby. Come on in.”

“Hi, Doctor A.”

He wandered over to the window first. There was a tree between the building and the parking lot. She wasn’t sure which, if either, he looked at. He sat in the squashy armchair.

Dr Tiffany Archenn had three chairs in her office besides her desk chair, with various degrees of softness. There was a well-stuffed armchair that the sitter noticeably sank into, a stiffer but still upholstered one, and a sturdy wooden armchair that patients with joint problems invariably chose because it was the easiest to get up from.

“Anything in particular you’d like to start with today?” she asked, in her cultivated gentle tone.

“Well, I’ve made some new friends.” He smiled, showing a glint of metal. “Some girls from school decided to start hanging out with me and Jimbo. One of them, Claire, had a crush on him at first, but they kept having lunch with us after he turned her down. They’re a lot of fun.”

Tiffany nodded. After centuries of practice, writing notes was like knitting for her; she no longer needed to look at what she was doing, though sometimes she did anyway if a patient was bothered by prolonged eye contact.

“What sorts of things have you been doing together?”

“Well, lunch, like I said, and Darci and I have been playing Mobile Go-Go Sushi. Sometimes we all go out and explore – uh, the trails around town, or the museum, or, like, little stores we’ve never been in before. And we’ve been … LARPing. That’s ‘live-action role play’.”

She knew that already, but she just nodded.

“It’s a fantasy game. Jim’s the most into it. He was actually doing it solo for a while before we found out, but now we’re all involved.”

‘Before we found out’. Not ‘before he told us’ or ‘invited us’. Now that was interesting.

How was Toby handling his closest friend having done something alone instead of sharing it with him, until Toby and the new additions to their social circle became involved all at once? How was he handling suddenly having to share his friend?

“Are you enjoying this game?” she asked leadingly.

“… Mostly. It can get pretty intense sometimes.”

“How do you mean?”

Toby twisted his hands in his lap. There were some fidgets on the windowsill and the side of the desk her patients sat on, but he didn’t use them often anymore.

“A couple weeks ago, we had a school play,” he said. “Claire and Mary were in it. Claire’s character died. Seeing that was like – like the stakes of, of the game, just got real. I had a nightmare that she died for real. It shook me up a lot. That’s when Nana called you.”

“I can see why that would be distressing.”

Emotional conflation was different from delusion, so this was probably not a sign that Toby was beginning to struggle with telling fiction from reality. Fearing for a friend’s wellbeing in a play or game and having that spill over into genuine concern for that friend’s safety was more likely related to Toby’s fear of abandonment.

She was surprised the fear was centred around one of the new friends rather than around his friend of longest standing, but it sounded like the death scene in the play had been the tipping point.

“Has this changed how you’ve been acting in your game?” Dr Archenn asked. “Or how you’ve interacted with your friends in general?”

“I’ve been more careful. Taken my training more seriously. I switched weapons – picked one I could actually use now instead of just the one I thought was coolest.”

“Has that helped?”

“A little.”

“Would you prefer a different game?”

“I couldn’t!” He shook his head. “Jimbo’s gonna do this with or without us – I can’t just leave him.”

Okay, now Tiffany was wondering if ‘LARPing’ was really a cover for some illegal activity these kids had stumbled into. Stupid Walter, leaving town right before she needed intel on some of his students.

“You don’t feel able to change overall aspects of this … game, only how you play?”

“… Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

“And you’re confident that your friends wouldn’t” – or can’t – “drop it to play something else?”

“Jim’s committed.” Tobias’ eyes widened at his own words. “I mean, he’s like, really emotionally invested in this fantasy world, you know? He’d feel really bad about giving it up. I can’t ask him to do that.”

Okay, so clearly Tobias’ friend Jim was the key to all of this. Considering the boys had been each other’s only friend for ten years, it was unlikely Tobias would be easily convinced to let go to save himself. He’d said twice in five minutes that he could not abandon Jim to whatever they were really doing, nor extract Jim from it.

She might be reading too much into this, Tiffany reminded herself. Toby might be being entirely literal, especially since he’d already volunteered so much information with so little prompting.

“Tell me some more about this game you’ve been playing.”

“Uh … well … it kind of started as Jim trying to write a fantasy novel, I think. He’s, like, this destined hero, a magical knight chosen to defeat an evil troll king. The rest of us are, um, fellow questers who’ve joined up with him. He wants to protect us by fighting alone, but …” he trailed off.

But you don’t want to be left behind by being cut out of something your friend is investing time in? Tiffany did not suggest. It would distort the accuracy of her analysis if she put words in her patient’s mouth.

“But none of us want to give it up,” Toby settled on.

He didn’t say more. Maybe the tension between Jim and Toby was because Jim had wanted to write this story alone and resented his friends inserting themselves into the narrative? Tiffany set out another prompt.

“You mentioned you chose a new weapon recently. Do you all have weapons?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a warhammer. I had one to start with, I just, switched to a lighter one. Because, um, my character stats meant I couldn’t lift the first one yet. Jim and Mary both have swords, Claire’s got a spear, Darci has a crossbow.”

“No spellcasters in your party?”

Toby laughed nervously. “Sometimes there’s magic artifacts, but, no, no spellcasters.”

+=+

Claire got her bleach and developer out of the cupboard, adding them to the rest of her materials.

“Whatcha doin’?” Not Enrique asked her.

“Seriously? Do you have no concept of privacy? I’m in the bathroom right now!”

“You didn’t shut the door.” He tapped the join between the hardwood floor he was standing on and the bathroom tiles.

Okay, fair point, not that she’d being saying so to him.

“I’m touching up my roots.”

“I got no idea what that means.” He stood up on his back legs (or just ‘legs’? He went on all fours most of the time, like AAARRRGGHH, but most trolls Claire had seen were bipeds) and squinted past her. “You got a plant in there?”

“No, I mean my hair.” She crouched on the floor and tugged her blue streak. “It’s growing out, so I have to dye the parts that don’t have colour yet.”

Not Enrique just blinked at her. “You … kill your hair to change its colour? But, Ma and Pa take me with ’em to the hairdressers sometimes, and none of the stuff on the floor turns different colours.”

Claire grit her teeth at hearing him refer to her and Enrique’s parents like they were his too.

“It’s not that kind of dye. Dee-why-ee, not dee-eye-ee. It’s like a paint.” She sighed. “Look, I’ll show you.”

She pulled on her rubber gloves and separated her dyed streak from the rest of her hair with foil.

“I’m just bleaching it today. I have to do that a couple of days in a row, because it takes a while to get it light enough for the colour to show up.”

She mixed the bleach with the developer, which helped bleach to penetrate hair, and some red-gold corrector, which made it more effective on dark hair. Claire carefully painted the goop into her hair.

“In about half an hour, I’ll wash this off, and the hair it was in will be lighter brown instead of black.”

“Wild.”

“So, what, did you think some of my hair was just naturally blue?”

“Yeah? I’ve seen lots of humans around with more than one hair colour.”

“… Fair point,” she admitted. Between the people with hair streaks like her, and anyone starting to go grey, and people with fully-dyed hair whose roots were showing, not to mention how technicolour troll hair could be, he’d have no reason to suspect some human hair colours or patterns were unnatural.

Claire folded the foil around her hair and carefully clipped it so it wouldn’t slip off. She wiped out the bowl she’d mixed the bleach in using paper towels and wrapped them in a bag to throw in the trash, rather than dumping bleach down the drain. It wasn’t good for the local water table. Claire took off her gloves and tidied everything else away. She set her phone timer so she wouldn’t damage her hair by leaving the bleach in for too long.

“What was that you were saying earlier?” asked Not Enrique. “Bout the different kinds of die. Dee-why-dee-eye?”

“They’re spelled differently,” said Claire. “So if you see it written down, you can tell which kind somebody means. It’s called a homophone when a word’s like that,” she remembered from an elementary school grammar class on the different kinds of words.

Claire left the bathroom. “Come on.” She went to their – her – mother’s home office, and took a sheet of paper and a pen. She wrote ‘die’ and ‘dye’ on the paper and handed it to Not Enrique, who held the page upside down. “Other way up. See the difference?”

He flipped the page. “Which one’s for hair and which is for killing?”

“D-Y-E is for recolouring stuff. It’s not just hair, you can do with cloth too.”

He pointed at the correct word. “That one’s the Y? Like in the alphabet videos.”

“Yeah. You know what?” Claire decided. “I’m gonna teach you to read. I know, I know, you’re picking it up,” seeing his insulted look, “but you’ll learn faster with a teacher.”

“You just wanna use me to spell-check the trollish homework Blinkous gives you.”

“Like you’d be useful for that when I’m the one teaching you.”

+=+

Previous Chapter (Jim gets and cleaves the Eye of Gunmar)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Visiting the Quagawumps to ask for the Killstone)

I learned how to dye hair streaks for this chapter! I’ve been thinking about doing them in my hair for a long time but never bothered because my hair’s really dark brown and all the bleaching sounded like a nuisance. Now that I’ve looked into how it’s done, it still sounds like a nuisance, but I might try it.

Dr Archenn does not suspect Toby knows about real trolls yet, because ‘fighting an evil troll’ is pretty standard fantasy fodder. Even if he’d mentioned Jim being ‘the Trollhunter’, that sounds like a generic term, so she wouldn’t get truly suspicious without further evidence. If he’d mentioned Gunmar by name, on the other hand, that would have been enough for her to call in some favours and put this kid under surveillance.

So, how about Wizards, huh? Deya’s portrayal gave me a bunch of ideas for her portrayal in this fic! Since I am not going with the idea of her being the first Trollhunter, I’ve also developed a whole bunch of backstory that will be revealed later about the Trollhunter job’s origins in this timeline. I’ll be sticking with some plans I already had as to the timing and motives of Morgana inventing Changelings.

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #Becoming The Mask chapters #Changeling Jim #Amulet of Daylight #AAARRRGGHH #rocks minerals crystals and gemstones #Tobias Domzalski #Changelings #original character #role-playing game #lies #Claire Nuñez #Not Enrique #Hair #colours #My Fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!

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tunafishprincess · 6 years ago

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Fallen Too Far

Chapter One: Sixteen

(Warning, this story ultimately goes into Mature. Tags will be listed on every chapter. The fic is completed on fanfic.net and AO3.)

Next.

He is sixteen when he notices it.

The changes are gradual. Falling asleep in classes, not doing her homework on time, but those are to be expected when you spend your nights preparing for Gunmar and his army. Even Jim struggles to keep his school life and Trollhunter life separate.

When she begins to forget things, however, he starts to worry.

At first, it is only the small things, like what they had for dinner the night before, or when their next Spanish test is. Later, he starts mixing up which troll is which, or not remembering her best friends’ names.

Every time she uses the Skathe-Hrün she changes, bit by bit. The black veins around her eyes take longer and longer to disappear.

He should have paid more attention.

Jim chalks it up to stress when her personality begins to switch from hot to cold without warning.

Mood swings, Toby says, you know how girls are.

He is a foolish and naïve boy back hen; he still believes he can save everyone.

It is when she murders Bagdwella with the staff and disappears that he should have given up.

He doesn’t.

Toby, Blinky, and AAARRRGGHH!!! try to be there for him, try to comfort him. It’s no use. The remaining Trollmarket trolls want vengeance; he just wants his girlfriend back.

Still relying on the hope that he can bring her back, he leaves his friends, believing that it will only take a while before he’s back with Claire, safe and sound. How stupid of him to think so. He followed the same kind of reasoning in the Darklands and look where that led him?

History repeats itself as they say. He doesn’t tell his mom and friends goodbye. It is one of his greatest regrets.

It takes days, weeks to find her, but when he does, he almost doesn’t recognize her.

The black veins around her eyes are now visible and prominent, making her skin look translucent. Her hair is tied up in a tight bun, though a few ringlets have fallen out, framing her gorgeous face. The expression on her face is not a welcome one.

Even as a monster, she is beautiful.

They fight; he tries to talk to her, but she mocks hi, her words as painful as her magic. Again and again he returns to that cave, begging for her to return. It is a dance, almost—he enters her domain, she strikes at him and he avoids. Over and over, until both are left gasping for air.

It is as if his words are to no avail; nothing he says reaches her.

Regardless, Jim never hits her back. Claire is his girlfriend. Hope is still on his side.

This is long before her first followers arrive, before he understands the truth about the girl he loves.

It is only when the possessed Draal comes, knocking her to the ground, that he truly lets go. It all happens so quickly, even she is surprised at the blue troll’s sudden appearance. Seeing her there, blood running down her temple, makes something in him crack. Perhaps it is stress, perhaps it is anger—either way, he unleashes hell on his former friend, the damn that holds back his emotions springing free.

The battle is intense; the longest he’s ever fought thus far.

But he is the Trollhunter. He still hesitates to make the final blow. It is only when his old friend gives him no other option except death that he sinks the blade into the troll’s heart.

It is traumatic. He imagines Kanjigar screaming in anguish in the back of his mind.

Jim wins and loses at the same time. It is the first of many.

Hot, wet tears stream down his face at the end. He vomits next to his friend’s mangled body. Draal didn’t deserve to go out like this. None of his words got to the troll. He was too far gone for Jim to save. These are the words he tells himself.

They don’t stem the guilt however. It hurts like a knife to his heart. Jim has kiled one of his friends. What would Toby, AAARRRGGHH!!! and Blinky think of him now?

He blames Gunmar (but secretly, he blames himself).

Claire calls for him meekly, looking at him with those eyes—the kind of eyes any man would get sucked into. He is at her side in seconds, searching for injuries.

“Oh Jim,” she says, and he cries harder, because it’s her, it’s really her. Brown and clear, like the day he first met her.

Jim strokes her cheek, “Claire.”

And then she’s gone, snuffed out by cold, calculating purple.

“You saved me.” There is wonder in her tone. It is not Claire who is speaking.

“I saved Claire,” he corrects her.

He can almost hear the gears turning in her head, face contemplative.

“Gunmar and I are in a disagreement of sorts,” she says. “He’ll come for me again, with more assassins next time. My children have yet to appear and I—”

“Give me back Claire,” he interrupts.

“You dare—”

“Please,” he begs, voice low. “I-I love her.”

The words slip out on their own accord.

Her eyes widen a fraction, but that is the only reaction he receives at his declaration.

“Then prove it,” she demands, pushing herself up and away, blending back into the darkness from which she came.

And he tries.

It is lonely—almost suffocating really. Days go by before another of Gunmar’s men comes and he is forced to kill that one as well. On the positive side, it doesn’t bother him as much as killing Draal did; it is still unpleasant and distressing to do though. His stomach curdles, however he resists throwing up.

Around this time her people arrive.

He thinks them human until they change in front of her, bent down on one knee and pledging their loyalty in Trollspeak. Changelings. He doesn’t recognize any of them but they certainly know him.

Thankfully, her followers ignore him, too focused on their tasks. It is, in some ways, a relief. He does not want to fight them too. Claire, or the person in Claire’s body—he can never be too sure—merely watches him. An improvement from before, he tells himself.

Boredom grips him during the day, so he trains in the woodlands nearby, never leaving for more than a few hours’ time to find food and drink to sustain himself.

Once, he leaves his phone in his backpack near the river to bath. Both are gone when he returns. He searches for them for days, weeks even. How else is he going to contact his friends and family?

In the end, he gives up on ever finding either again. It doesn’t matter, he reasons. Once Claire is returned to her former self they can go home.

Speaking of, his girlfriend barely spares him a moment’s time to talk and usually it is only in response to his questions; it agonizes him.

Jim misses home, his mom, his best friend. He misses AAARRRGGHH!!!’s gentle smiles and Blinky’s lectures. He contemplates giving up, to return home, but his desire to save her always wins out. It is in his nature to never give up on his loved ones.

It is his greatest strength.

And later, his worst weakness.

The attacks increase in force and ferocity. He grows stronger, striking down her enemies with a flash of his blade. With every death it becomes less difficult. They were Gunmar’s men, he tells himself, bad trolls he would ultimately have to kill anyways. It is much easier to deal with the devil you know than the devil you don’t. He believes that with each swing of his sword he comes closer and closer to freeing his girlfriend.

He has always been good at daydreaming.

It is when she revives Angor Rot that he loses his patience. How could she? It is when he begins to doubt.

The night is dark and foggy when he starts off for the journey home. She must have noticed his silence at the resurrection, because he runs into her in the forest.

She is ethereal, the glow of her eyes and staff matched only by the shine by his amulet.

“Jim, where are you going?”

“Don’t you dare,” he says coldly, avoiding her gaze. “You brought him back, after all we’ve done? Angor Rot tried to kill me. He tried to kill my mom. Hell, he tried to kill all of us! And for what? Is Claire even in there anymore?”

Fingers weave through his hair; he startles at the sensation. It had been forever since someone touched him.

“I feel so lost, so confused,” she whispers in his ear. He shudders at how close she is. “So many memories. I’m not even sure who I am anymore.”

“You’re Claire,” he insists, “You’re my girlfriend. You like Papa Skull and guacamole. A-and you have a light brother, and a mom and dad. Your best friends are—”

Her lips silence him. It is soft and hesitant, as if she would break at even the slightest of touches.

Jim melts into the kiss. It has been so long since she has last kissed him. His arms encircle her waist. Warmth fills his being. He has forgotten how nice hugs are.

“Only you. You are the only one I can’t kill,” she admits. “I have sent dozens of Trollhunters to their deaths and yet, when when I look at you, I cannot bring myself to even consider the notion. Why is that I wonder? Have Claire and I become so intertwined that her feelings now influence mine?”

“You...” His eyes search hers. “Who are you exactly?”

She tilts her heads to the side, lips pulled into a secretive smile. Her fingertips travel down to his face. “I’m known by many names.”

A chill runs down his spine. The air becomes thick with what he will later associate as her magic. As of now, it reminds him of burning wood and incense.

“Then what would you like me to call you?” He asks.

The purple of her eyes lightens.

“Morgana,” she says after a long moment.

“And who are you, Morgana?”

“I’m many things,” she says wistfully.

Answers, he later learns, are never easy with Morgana.

He goes in a different direction. “Where’s Claire? What have you done with her?”

Not-Claire drums her fingers across his shoulder, staring directly into his eyes. “Your girlfriend and I are one now.”

“Is there any way you can just separate from her?” He asks. “I’ll do anything.”

“It would kill both of us.”

He wants to cry. His eyes even begin to water. A black-nailed finger catches one of his stray tears. She brings it to her mouth and laps at it like a feline. Disgust blossoms in his stomach but he suppresses it. It is another stark reminder that Morgana is not Claire.

She sighs, switching her gaze to the sky. “I simply want to protect my people. I didn’t mean to take over your girlfriend. It was an accident.”

He laughs darkly, “An accident or a convenience?”

“Do you hate me?” Morgana says, voice wavering slightly. Her hands tighten on his shoulders.

“I,” he swallows, looking away, “I don’t know.”

He wants to, but every time he looks at her he sees Claire. Her eyes, her nose, her smile—it’s all there.

“She loves you.”

The lingering hope in his chest swells.

“She does?”

“Yes, so much. I can hear her, even now.” She says, and he believes her, because what else could he do?

“Tell her…tell her I love her too. That I’ll never betray her. I’m hers, forever and always.” And he means it.

“Then you’ll stay?” She asks, and its Claire’s voice, and he’s the happiest he’s been in weeks. “Here with me?”

“Where else would Romeo be than with his Juliet?” He jokes. Later on, he would curse how easily he falls, how gullible he is. He still thinks he could do it alone.

She emits a small laugh, light and dainty. “Thank you, my Trollhunter.”

And then he is hers.

#Trollhunters #fallen too far #jlaire #dark jlaire #fanfic #jim lake junior #claire nuñez #clairegana #Dark!Claire #dark!jim #Dark Fic

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the-twin-trollhunters · 6 years ago

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it’s been literal ages since i’ve actively DONE anything with this blog but i really wanna get back into developing this au since i love it a lot,, even if “developing” is more just. writing scattered drabbles and snippits instead of writing through it chronologically so...

if you have questions or prompt ideas or cool thoughts about any particular era, please do let me know, i love talking about this crossover!

the 5 eras of this crossover:

Era 1: (August 1967- June 1968) Glass Shard Beach/Quartz Shard Cove Era 2: (1968-1982) Stan in Trollmarket/Ford’s research years Era 3: (1982-2012) Wilderness Years Era 4: (2012-2016) Summer 2012 and beyond Era 5: (Spring 2016~) The new trollhunters

(a ton more rando ideas under the cut)

Era 1: (August 1967- June 1968) Glass Shard Beach/Quartz Shard Cove

Big ideas: -Stan finds amulet, discovers underground civilization of trolls alongside Ford -Helps protect Quartz Shard Cove, the troll city below them, over the course of senior year -Major foes are Korsiva (a disgraced ex-general of Gunmar who’s been in hibernation for years) and an east coast branch of the Janus Order -Stan and Ford’s baby nephew (son of their big brother Shermie), Alexander, gets swapped out for a changeling. Chaos ensues. -Carla- Stan’s best friend- is brought into the fold/fights alongside the twins. -That time they recovered a single piece of the Killahead that was unguarded- they learn the changelings are trying to rebuilt it early in this AU. The piece is stowed away for safekeeping in Trollmarket, deep in the catacombs. -Over time there’s found family themes with Alex the changeling, and he ends up defecting from the Janus Order entirely.. after experiencing all the horror of the Darklands, he just wants the chance to live a good and honest life. Through ancient magic, he finds a way to wipe the evidence of his existence from the Order. -Blinky and Aaarrrgghh pretty much slam adopt on all of these humans. -Stan and Ford’s relationship becomes more and more strained as the year goes on because Stan keeps pushing him away (thinking he’s protecting him by doing so)

Era 2: (1968-1982) Stan in Trollmarket/Ford’s research years

Big ideas: -After Stan is kicked out, he moves with Blinky and Aaarrrgghh back to Trollmarket. -Ford, to college. -Stan becomes really close with Draal during this time. -A lot of Stan’s work during this time is working to maintain peace in the troll world with the continuing threat of Killahead bridge being knowingly rebuilt, and trying to figure out WHERE the bridge pieces are being stored. (Currently it’s being hidden in a place far away from Arcadia.) -Ford still goes to Gravity Falls to research the strange and bizzare, and the Bill Cipher stuff still happens, except in this AU the Nightmare Realm and the Darklands are the same place, just this interdimensional dumping ground that Bill and Gunmar are both trapped within. They’re pretty much both competing to see who can get out first. -Stan sent to go investigate the going-ons in Gravity Falls bc the trolls sensed an open portal to the Darklands there. He’s pissed and confused to realize it was his brother’s doing. -Ford gets sucked through the portal, along with Stan’s amulet.

Era 3: (1982-2012) Wilderness Years

Big ideas: -The troll Tribunal forbids Stan from setting foot in any troll settlement in punishment for losing the amulet to Gunmar’s clutches. They’re essentially without a trollhunter for these 30 years. -Stan realizes the truth about Ford, that he was manipulated by an ancient eldritch being. Now feeling insanely guilty for leaving him to the whims of something like that, he begins to rebuild the thrashed portal. It may be ultimate treason to the trollkind he once swore to protect, but his family is forever more important to him than law. -Ford, meanwhile, discovers a shocking fact- the amulet calls his name too, and he can wield the armor and Daylight as well. He travels the multiverse for 30 years, learning more about the amulet and what it means to be a trollhunter along the way... crossing into dimensions where other trollhunters exist, gathering stones to use in it, gaining proficiency at fighting... -Alex- or as he comes to call himself, Lex- grows up, moves to California, falls in love with a human woman, and to his great surprise they’re able to have kids- twins. As far as he knows at that point, they’re essentially fully human- but they all know about his changeling nature. -They raise their kids in Arcadia. Occasionally, Lex does reconnaissance work for the trolls- Blinky and Vendel specifically.

Era 4: (2012-2016) Summer 2012 and beyond

Big ideas: -Lex sends his kids to GF for the summer for Stan to watch, paranoid that the Janus Order discovered what he did to their records and found him again -Much of the summer is spent trying to uncover their Grunkle’s hidden past (he’s kept all the trollhunting stuff on the down low from family as a result of his disgrace from troll society. only lex knows the full story.) and what’s up with this mysterious journal in the woods. -The journal is p much the same except it has a toooon of troll stuff in it too. Ford’s a nerd. -Wendy is a changeling. Originally she was stationed in Gravity Falls to keep an eye on Stan and make sure he’s not up to no good, but she’s never actually gotten the chance to sneak into his basement to see what he’s working on. His security is too top-notch. When she’s finally a teen in human years she gets a job in the shack so she can get closer to him. -Honestly I think she also flips. Just, all the changelings eventually flip when they see how great found family and friendships and anything that’s not Gunmar is, okay? XDD -Fiddleford isn’t actually entirely insane- but he’s still not all mentally there. Long story. He lives with his son and actually wears clothes most of the time. -Yknow I’m pretty sure Dipper and Mabel prob catch Wendy shifting between forms and that’s how they esp bond -Also let’s be real the two of them definitely end up exploring the troll civilization under Gravity Falls -the Wham moment where Ford walks out of the portal wearing the Armor of Daylight and everyone’s like :O OOO two trollhunters!!! ! -Weirdmageddon’s weirdness wave activates long dormant changeling genes for Dipper and Mabel, and they shift into troll forms. They’re a unique case of changeling because they are their own familiars. -Post 2012, the full story of what happened with the amulet becomes known to trollkind, and Stan’s ban from underground is lifted. He and Ford together continue trollhunting business, and they’re still a force to be reckoned with, even with their age. -In early 2016, the amulet leaves Stan and Ford, and stops responding to them both. The assumption made is that it senses the two of them are unable to carry out their duty anymore at their age, and has made the choice to move on. (normally a trollhunter just... would die long before they grew old enough for this to be a problem, so...)

Era 5: (Spring 2016~) The new trollhunters

-Dipper and Mabel are both 18, in senior year. They are fully able to shift between forms at whim by now. -Amulet picks Jim. A lot of broad canon strokes remain the same, but the trolls already are aware of the changelings still existing, and of the Killahead bridge’s threat- and have made the appropriate precautions. Tbh I still need to develop more logical divergences this new canon would make in what happens. -But I do know for sure that the changelings have to infiltrate Trollmarket to steal the stone Stan retrieved LOOONG ago in 1968 to even open the Killahead bridge at all. -And I think Bular’s been out and about for some time trying to sniff out where this piece was being kept. His hunt has only recently brought him back to Arcadia. -Dipper and Mabel accidentally out themselves to Bular during the equivalent of the ep Young Atlas as they try to rescue Jim. This also outs the fact that ONE of their parents must be a changeling to the Janus Order. -There is a Kidnapping that occurs,,, as Strickler is trying to pry info on where the last piece is from Lex, using Dip and Mab as collateral. Strickler gets the info he wants, sigh. -Through the battle of Killahead that eventually ensues, both Nomura AND Lex are sucked through into the Darklands. Not only does everyone want to rescue Claire’s baby brother, but they want to rescue Lex too. (There’s also some interesting ethics on whether or not they should rescue the REAL baby Alexander Pines afforded the opportunity, too. I’m still not sure if they do or not.) -When Jim goes into the Darklands, Stan and Ford return from their sailing expedition to keep the peace as best they can in Trollmarket/Arcadia. Sans amulet, of course, bc it won’t respond to them anymore but.. it’s something. -They’re there for the remainder of “S2-3.” -Ford ends up trying to defend Jim at the tribunal, but despite his eloquence still fails to convince them of anything. -When the Merlin quest happens, Dipper and Mabel are there as well. They can’t shift forms because of the magic ban, but their addition is enough to help fight off/kill Angor Rot and save Draal. -Ford knows from his journeys through the multiverse what Merlin aims to do (he’s met a future half-troll version of Jim, he Suspects) and is Against It. They fight alone at one point. -Battle stuff... Except the battle goes Fucking Wrong because of some key elements (no Angor Rot to blindside Morgana) and it ends up with the eternal night becoming permanent and some hellish frickin stuff, Morgana murders Merlin, she reconstitutes the shattered fragments of Bill Cipher within Stan’s mind (those two have History and that’s literally a whole nother Story please do ask me about it) and whisks him away in seconds to GF to go break Bill’s full essence free from his stone prison because she wants to p much steal his power for herself. -Ford found a sort of special amulet stone whilst in the multiverse that he’s been keeping all this time in case of emergencies... it allows the bearer to jump backwards in time, but only once. Only thing is, it’s also. in Gravity Falls. Kept safe in Fiddleford’s mansion. -Claire jumps them to GF via shadow staff. -Jim gets the stone and is able to use it like, just before they pretty much all die. He jumps back to RIGHT when Merlin wakes up in the tomb. -He realizes that the only real way he can stop all of this from going to hell completely is by making sure that all the shards of Bill in Stan’s mind are well and truly destroyed forever... and so they do just that. It’s a big dramatic mind demon eternal exorcism, a family/friends effort.

-there’s probably more but I’ve literally been rambling on like a noob. that’s pretty much the highlights. please do ask me questions about events/character relationships/places/timeline stuff/etc etc etc i would love to see them!

#trollhunters #gravity falls #trollhunters au #gravity falls au #a tale of two trollhunters #stanley pines #stanford pines #jim lake jr #dipper pines #mabel pines #etc etc #lots of characters here #text

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tigereyes45 · 6 years ago

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Human Words

Trollhunters Rarepair Week Day 6 "I love you more than ____"

“I love you more than I have ever feared to die, son.” Some of the last words Kajingar ever told his son, and the ones that always stuck to Draal the most. In times when he was scared he recalled those words and wonders if he could ever love someone that much. Loved them more then he feared the end. The same end that every troll was taught to fear from their first moments. That is why they fight so ferociously. Fear.

Jim the trollhunter did not fight simply out of fear. He fought with anger, hope, and determination. Out of need and necessity. He ran away when he feared, and stood with courage in other moments despite it. In truth, Jim was the strongest Trollhunter Draal had ever met. Perhaps not physically, but he could fight without fear and survive. No other trollhunter had been able to do that before, but no other trollhunter had been as forgiving as he had either. He also seemed to understand things that Draal could not about his own father. Words his father learned from protecting humans and learned.

Words Draal heard The Barbara often repeat. Love, forgiveness, hope, faith, and worry. Word The Barbara used more so than not in reference to the trollhunter, and occasionally his friend or the changling. Worry was the most common, and Draal listened patiently from the basement to try and understand it. Apparently, by human definition, it is concern. Concern that can grow overwhelming and can cause one to experience a feeling of grief if it goes unchecked. The Barbara worried for Jim just as Blinky did. Who knew that the troll had already known what is was, and could feel it as deeply as a human? Apparently Aaarrrgghh!!! as he often spent the most amount of time with Blinky. Draal had learned that from asking them if they could understand what The Barbara was feeling. When he left he felt as if he could understand the humans better himself.

The next emotion he came to seek answers for was hope. Toby came to him with that answer after Draal told the small fleshbags of The Barbara’s repeated use of it. Always saying she “hoped” Jim did well in school, she “hoped” he was making good friends, she “hoped” Jim would come back to her. As if the trollhunter had gone somewhere and she knew. Toby felt positive that Doctor Lake, as he called her, was not aware that he had ever been gone at all.

“Except for the camping trip,”

“Camping trip?”

“Nevermind,” Toby explained hope is what you wish will happen. Often times it is good things people hope for over bad.

So The Barbara only wanted good things for Jim. A commonality shared between the troll parents and the humans’. The Barbara hoped she was a good enough mother for a son she had raised to be a hero. A hero she never knew.

So Draal then learned of faith. At first, he had only heard of late talk hosts who shouted and screamed at a sleeping The Barbara through their television. Always talking about faith and places like heaven and hell. Of gods with too many names for Draal to remember. He had not liked the men who shouted from the T.V. since the first night he heard them and came racing up the stairs to see if someone was attacking Jim or The Barbara. Only to see a tiny fleshbag that was far to mean for his size.

Then he heard The Barbara use that word. That she had faith in her son. That he was a good kid and no one could convince her otherwise. Teenagers do stupid things, but her son was always faithful to his friend Toby. To a fault really. He heard her say those words during the night after Jim had been caught in the museum by the police. He did not learn what they met until much later when Fair Claire took the time to explain it. Honestly, her explanations were varied as if the term had so many meanings the human could not settle on a few. So it still confuses Draal but from what he understood it is a belief in someone or something. So The Barbara believed in Jim, believed that he was a good kid, and loyal. Draal believed in Jim too. Not at first, but now he believed that Jim was a great trollhunter. He had faith in him.

Forgiveness was next and the last of the new human terms he did not understand. She forgave the changling, Strickler for standing her up the other day. She forgave Jim for snapping at her when she asked where he was. She would ask at night how much was she suppose to forgive. Why did she always have to forgive. So Draal went to the one she forgave the most, and asked Jim what the word met.

“What do you mean?” Jim asks lowering his sword as the question interrupted their practice.

“What does the word, forgiveness mean?”

“Where’d you hear it?” Jim asks leaning against his sword in a relaxed stance.

“On the T.V. last night,” Draal lies. But Jim knew at night or when they were gone was the only time Draal moved about his house. He spent his first few days alone digging that hole and once that was done he was curious.

“Oh, well it means you forgive someone.” Jim answers only confusing Draal more. “Like how I forgave you for attacking me.”

“Ah so it is when two humans fight and then let the other live.” Draal was happy this forgiveness sounded like something he actually enjoyed.

Jim laughs and shakes his hand. “I mean yeah it can go that way but usually when you forgive someone you tell them that everything you were mad or sad about is okay. That you don’t blame them anymore. Sometimes their is fighting but forgiveness often comes after, or prevents the big fight.”

“Oh.” Draal was disappointed he had actually wanted to watch The Barbara fight the changling. He was sure she would get him in the gronk-nuts. Where it really hurts. One weakness the changlings and trollkind shared.

Love was the next one. A word his father often spoke to him, and Draal took as a bond between child and parent. But humans used love for everything, from family, to friends, and mates. Even for short moments that they used to express this love. It was not a new word to him but the humans introduced many different meanings to it that he was unaware of before. When he came to realize this he also knew that he felt love. For his fellow trolls, and for the fleshbags they had spent so much time with. But Draal knew, he also felt love for The Barbara. The human that caused him to learn all of these things he would have never known otherwise.

He had his chance to tell her, when she found out about all of them. Their first true introduction ending with him screaming in her face and her pepper spraying his. When he woke up he found out what had all happened, and followed them down to Trollmarket. Jim was upset and arguing with Strickler, the changling that was always over. Draal felt smugly proud that the changling was not getting left off the hook for putting the trollhunter and The Barbara in danger. Esepcially after he had to see them kiss as Jim said.

Having the moment too Draal decides to visit The Barbara. He walks into the room nervously too see that only lonsome Vendel was with her. The older troll nods in ackownledgement to Draal before montioning him closer. As Draal approachs Vendel pulls him closer tucking Draal’s shoulders under one arm as he sets his staff against the wall with the other. Vendel looks over their shoulders, and Draal mimics him to see Barbara squinting in their direction.

“Where were you?” Vendel asks quietly. His voice was soft with concern no sign of him blaming Draal for what was currently happening.

“She attacked me,” Draal begins. “I fell and then set off the traps, and was stuck.” He explains holding back a little just so Vendel did not know how foolish the situation really was.

“I see. The trollhunter’s mother is something else. She attacked Angor Rot, and told off the changling.” Vendel sounds a little impressed as he lets go of Draal and returns to his desk.

Draal feels a burning sensation climb up his spine. He turns around to see The Barbara still watching him. “May I speak with her?”

Vendel waves off his question. Draal takes that as a yes. Slowly, afraid that even his heavy steps would someone cause The Barbara to get worse, Draal apporaches her. He straches his neck as he looks from the chair to her. I would just be better if he stood. To his surprise The Barbara was watching him. Her lips are twisted in a face he could not tell if it was happy, or upset. Taking a deep breath he tries to introduce himself this time.

“Hello The Barbara. I am Draal.”

“You were in my house.” Barbara announces as if there was a chance of another giant blue troll with horns the size of her body to be in her home

Draal stares at her before answering. “Yes I was. I protect the trollhunter, and you.”

“In my house?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Why have I never seen you?” She asks her expression beginning to grow more curious then anything else.

“I, uh, stay in the basement.” Draal wonders why his face felt so hot as he answers The Barbara’s many questions.

“Are you the one who put a giant hole in my basement?” She asks pushing herself up a little bit on the rock.

“Yes. Are you uh, uncomfortable?” He asks wondering why The Barbara was moving when she was sick.

“Just a little. I am better now that I have gotten a little of the pressure off my upper back.” She rubs at her eye and Draal wonders how soft she must feel. The stone but be so cold against her small frame.

“Would you like some pillows or blankets from your house?” Draal offers not sure if he actually wanted to leave her side or not. She wanted her to be comfortable but he also knew what healing her would take. She would not remember any of this.

“No. I'm fine. I'm just surprised. Jim a hero, Toby and him going around the world fighting trolls,”

“And Goblins. Jim is a worthy trollhunter. My own father carried the title before him and I am proud to be his guardian.” Draal could feel the words spilling out of his mouth before he thought of what they were. He wanted to tell her everything. About Jim, the trolls, Gunmar, Gumm-gumms, and even himself. He wanted to make sure she knew just how amazing Jim was. That her son was someone to be proud of and have faith in, but part of him knew that she was already aware of that.

“My son the trollhunter.” The Barbara laughs and Draal knew he wanted to hear that laugh again. No matter how quiet it was or loud it would be. He had never heard her laugh in her house. “Thank you for protecting him. Draal.” She hesitates before saying his name as if testing it on her lips. That was when Draal truly understood his father's words. He loved her in the only way trolls could feel love. He wanted to tell her then, because even though she wouldn't return it he could say, “I love you more than I have ever feared to die.”, She wouldn't remember once she was better, but at least he could say that he did.

Instead his judgement gets the better of him. He promises, “I will always protect your son.”

#fanfiction #fanfic #trollhunters rarepair week #draal the deadly #draal #barbara lake #Draal x Barbara #Barbara Lake x draal #Draal/Barbara #Barbara/Draal

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quietpagan · 7 years ago

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What Falls and What Grows, ch. 12

“ …The weed, tough

As the rock it leaps against,

Unless plucked to the last

Live fiber

Will plunge up through dark again.

The weed also has the desire

To make clean,

Make pure, there against the rock."

- Lucien Stryk

Anglia began to suspect the moment they turned down the alley. She opened her mouth to yell but Alexandra punched her hard in the chest, knocking her to the ground. She gasped for air and rolled out of the way just as Alexandra’s foot stomped the stone where her neck had been. Alex aimed a kick, but Anglia caught her foot and pushed her off balance, and they rolled behind a pile of old boxes, the cobblestones scraping their arms and faces.

Alex pulled back to hit her again, but Anglia swept her arm up in an arch and a line of red streaked across Alex’s breasts. She automatically withdrew but landed a solid slap to Anglia’s face.

“I don’t want to kill you,” she growled, grabbing the other woman’s hands before she could use her knife again.

“I work for the Trollhunter,” she said.

“You bloody traitor,” Anglia spat, baring lengthening teeth. Alex pulled her torso up and slammed the other Changeling’s head again against the ground. Anglia’s eyes glowed in anger and Alexandra simmered hers in return.

“Dammit, woman, I’m trying to help you! You think that Gunmar’s return will do anything for us? At least the Trollhunter won’t kill me if I make a single mistake!” “Gunmar made us everything we are,” Anglia replied. Alex’s grip on her shoulders tightened and Anglia cried out as claws pierced her skin.

“You think that’s a good thing? We had actual families, damn you! People who cared about us! We used to fit. Now even the ones who created us treat lower than goblin filth!” Anglia spat in her eye; the sensation sent Alexandra into a brief panic, the remembrance of Bular’s sword on her face running through her mind. The other Changeling used the distraction to unbalance her, standing and grabbing Alex by the shoulders so that she could throw her against the wall.

“Gunmar made me strong,” Anglia sneered, her lengthening fingernails scoring lines into Alex’s flesh. “And he rewards those of us who serve him with loyalty. I suppose you would know nothing of that.”

The pain was irritating, but Alexandra couldn’t transform or don her armor; if Anglia survived, if she got away, then she would know what Alex looked like, could spread the word – her position as Trollhunter was powerful but fragile, and would not survive her being exposed as a Changeling.

She pushed against the wall to dislodge the other woman. Anglia came rushing at Alex, swift and deadly with her knife held before her, but Alex was the stronger; with her two forms beginning to merge her human body slowly gained strength and durability, and when she grabbed Anglia’s arm she twisted it and broke it at the elbow. Anglia didn’t have time to cry out before she was grabbed into a headlock, Alexandra’s forearm steadily putting pressure on her throat. She kicked behind at Alex’s legs, but slowly, slowly sank onto the ground, until Alex could no longer feel her pulse.

She took a minute to catch her breath, and then rummaged for the dead woman’s wallet, removing her jewelry and scattering her purse across the alley. She emerged from the alley with a minimum of dishevelment, and she tucked Anglia’s knife in her pants and walked away, only pausing to throw the other Changeling’s earrings and horrible troll-tooth necklace over the side of a bridge.

The gyre trip to Bath was quick, but AAARRRGGHH still needed a few moments to settle his stomach. Alexandra gave him the rest of her coffee and bought another for herself with Anglia’s stolen money. It tasted more bitter than usual. The scratches on her shoulders were hidden by a wide scarf, and the memory of them itched.

Blinky, once he was assured that she was alright, looked almost unforgivably excited. He began spouting off trivia and tidbits of fact about the baths and the lore of, but although AAARRRGGHH was as engaged as he could be, Alex only nodded in the appropriate places. A wave of exhaustion had hit her very suddenly, and all she wanted to do was curl up in bed – preferably on the other side of the country, where she wouldn’t have to be Trollhunter – and sleep for a few good days. Her fight with Anglia had left her with a significantly more sour tone than usual, and she was tired and disinterested in a way that ‘exhausted’ just didn’t cover.

Blinky’s chattering – something that she would have been invested in on any other day – was annoying rather than engaging, and she gripped her stone coffee mug tightly to keep from throwing it at his head. She was tired and grumpy and didn’t need to raise suspicion by taking it out on someone else.

“…And it was believed that the waters, once drunk, could cure a myriad of illnesses and…Master Alexandra, are you listening?”

Alex almost nodded automatically before she caught herself. She blinked her eyes open and looked at Blinky’s annoyed face.

“No,” she said. “No, I’m actually not. Is any of this going to help us find Vendel’s contact?” Blinky huffed, just as the gyre began to slow.

“To know how to handle anything, Master Alexandra, we must first understand the history and context of what we are dealing with. It does not do to simply run in without any awareness of the state of affairs of our situation.”

Alex dismounted the gyre with a snarl, and knew Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were exchanging glances. The cuts on her shoulders and chest itched and pulled, there was an irritating hum just under her skin that she couldn’t shake, and she really just wanted to punch something. The fact that Blinky was right didn’t help, especially since he had just admonished her like a child.

They had been dropped off under the very same bridge Alex had used to discard Anglia’s personal effects, a glowing portal connecting the gyre trail to the outside. A quick, sickening pang echoed in her chest and she pushed it away, climbing up the wall and watching the various night-goers until it was clear.

Alexandra still carried the runestone that Blinky had bought to disable the cameras, and after sneaking over to the baths they quietly scaled the outside of the building.

The statues standing above the main pool eerily reminded Alexandra of the stone bodies of the fallen Hunters, and though they were beautiful to look at she avoided glancing at them. Blinky, oddly silent, seemed to know his way.

There was a clamor behind them, then a soft sigh and the flicker of a flashlight. Alexandra whirled around to see AAARRRGGHH holding an unconscious human guard, lifting him in the air by one ankle. AAARRRGGHH gave her a sheepish smile before he softly tucked the man against the railing and ate the flashlight. Alex’s nerves were still on edge as he quietly rumbled past her to follow Blinky down the stairs. She cursed herself and took after him, shaking herself to try and get rid of her shivers. She needed to calm the fuck down. She should have been on the lookout for a night-guard; she should have seen the man. They very nearly got caught because of her frazzled state of mind.

Blinky led them to a room with a deep, circular pool, one that Alex had glanced at but passed by. The water was pitch black but it shimmered with greens and golds from the nightlights. Blinky hopped over the glass barrier and passed his hand through the water. It came up dry.

“The pool is much deeper than it appears to humankind,” he said, turning behind him and obviously enjoying the looks in incredulity that Alex knew she and AAARRRGGHH were wearing. “In reality is it a local portal, leading to a pocket dimension of similar rooms. Come along, my friends.”

He stepped forward and disappeared into the pool without a splash. Alex swore and jumped over the barrier, following hot on his heels. She didn’t know if there were any goblins left guarding the area, or if the area had been trapped…

With a rush of an odd dark-light, she landed exactly where she had jumped, as if on solid ground, but in a different room, the rounded walls and engaged columns embedded with glowing gems and uncut crystals. A soft thundering made her scamper to the side before AAARRRGGHH landed nearly on top of her.

“Blinky be careful,” he murmured. Blinky, who was wrist-deep in several files of papers, nodded vigorously.

There was no troll slumped over the desk, nor a body hidden behind the clean lines of shelves and books, but the air had the unmistakable odor of troll blood.

How had Anglia done it, Alexandra wondered vaguely. Her knife? Her claws? She resisted the urge to scratch at her wounds, and thought about the woman’s very sharp and prominent teeth. Had she disposed of the body in the river just a few blocks down, or was it still hidden somewhere…

The tidy office was only sullied by a few loose papers scattered on the floor, and Blinky bent to pick them up.

“The stone was certainly here,” he murmured. “As was our contact. Although it seems…”

Two of his fingers trailed over a little spot of purple blood on a shelf, the wood cracked as if someone had been thrown against it. The rubbery scent of goblin lingered on the walls.

“…That she may be here no longer. We need to find out if her attackers managed to locate the stone, and whatever other information our contact may have possessed.”

They shuffled quietly about the small office, none of them willing to make too much noise. AAARRRGGHH took his time looking through the collection of texts on the back wall, while Blinky looked over the contacts’ papers. Alex busied herself engaging both nose and eyes, running her fingers over the roughened walls and examining the various artifacts and collections for clues, while her mind was damnably occupied elsewhere.

She hadn’t noticed the pool was deeper than it was supposed to be. Even in her human form, she could see the troll magic, and she hadn’t noticed the difference. How much else had she missed?

Her fingers dented the wooden lid of a decorated box, trying to jiggle the key without making too much of a noise, while trying to control her temper.

Really, she thought at the blasted thing. Really?

AAARRRGGHH took it from her when she put it down with deliberate care. She handed him the key. The box sounded empty anyway and she was utterly useless. Her nerves were frazzled and she couldn’t get rid of the hum under her skin, and her exhaustion was making it difficult to concentrate on their given task. The fact that AAARRRGGHH apparently could open the stupid little box with no complications didn’t help.

“Blinky…”

Alex turned at the tone of his voice. His back was to her, but she heard him drop the box. His arm began to shake, and she silently walked around him and took the stone out of his hand. Blinky came jogging up, looking ready to explode in excitement before he caught the stricken look on his companion’s face.

Alexandra retrieved the discarded box and replaced the stone, giving it to Blinky to stow in one of his pockets. To AAARRRGGHH she gave her scarf, when his eyes began to water. They left the office and the baths in silence.

AAARRRGGHH made a concerned grunt at the scratches on her shoulders as they anxiously waited in line for the London Bridge, but she waved him off with her best ‘comforting’ smile.

“Bit of a bar fight,” she said.

Vendel did not take the news of his contact’s death well, and he was less than happy about having a piece of Killahead Bridge handed to him.

“I had hoped…” he’d murmured to himself, his form disappearing within the lit interior of the Hearthstone.

Alex left before Blinky could rally himself to make a motivational speech. Her bag and pockets were heavy with the books she had stolen from the Baths, and she dropped them on the bed to mix with Kanjigar’s collection, ignoring the call of the library.

There were a few people who called to her for help or advice on her way to the entrance to the market, and she quietly helped them settle their problems. After Blinky’s ‘Changeling’ clusterfuck many more of the denizens of Trollmarket were sympathetic and encouraging to her, and although she appreciated the rise in reputation the changeability of everyone’s opinion was rather disheartening. Less than a week ago the majority of Trollmarket thought her cowardly and unorthodox for letting Draal live, but here she was, advising a family on the best way to expand their living quarters for their newest child. It didn’t matter that she had no clue what she was talking about – they still asked. She couldn’t decide quite how she felt about it.

Noon was rising in the human world when she was, at length, allowed time to herself, and she walked to the museum with its warmth on her back. A brief stop in a tourist shop and the bathroom of an ice cream store lent her a decent disguise; she bought her museum ticket and wandered around with all the care of an careless art student.

It was amazing, really, exactly how much Nomura was able to get past the radar. The mural featuring boars with six eyes really caught Alex’s interest, as did several pieces of troll-made weaponry. Had nobody questioned these? Had Nomura somehow explained their oddities into the realms of benign eccentricity? Arcadia was a melting pot of ‘interesting’ characters and history – had it been on purpose?

The notion that Strickler, Nomura, Bular, and the hoard of goblins they kept were not alone as the only magical denizens of Arcadia made her shiver. Trollmarket was safe in its underground nest, but if Bular had an entire army hidden on the surface it did not mark well for the people living in the city.

goes up and tries to find out more about he Changeling community and plans;

although she’d known they were tracking down the pieces, she didn’t know they had actually found any and were building the bridge in Arcadia.

She regrets completely distancing herself from the Changeling community; she should have taken on a different identity, or kept in touch as someone else, or kept up her information. Now she has to guess on who is current with Bular and Strickler and who’s fallen by the wayside, because she’s not sure who she can safely impersonate in order to infiltrate.

Alexandra dutifully sketched everything that caught her eye, aimlessly perambulating around the museum until she reached the exhibits that were under construction. There was a sign, but no door, no rope, which seemed hopelessly easy; either Nomura was that confident about nobody seeing anything, or she had lost a few brain cells since the last time Alex had seen her. Either way, it was broad daylight, and Alexandra took the opening.

She scampered up to a half-finished Viking exhibit, looking under her lashes at the rest of the room while she sketched it. It was rather empty, a little messy, but although there was no gigantic bridge there was a distinct tinge of goblin, and perhaps the tingling remnant of magic. Boxes were piled against one wall and Alex carelessly ambled over to them, adding a little shading to her drawing of the Viking ship’s prow. Every box was sealed, and she dared not try and pry one open.

Around the corner of the room were yet more boxes, some of them quite sizeable. Magic lingered in the air.

A very soft, deep breathing echoed through the space, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.

Where did Bular stay during the day?

“Hey!” Alex spun around, clutching her drawing pad to her chest. Nomura grabbed her shoulder and pulled her close.

“I don’t believe you belong in this part of the museum, miss.”

“B-but my thesis,” Alex whimpered, showing her the drawing with shaking hands.

“I just need a few more minutes – “

“Out.”

Nomura quickly but quietly steered her to the exit, pushing her none-too-gently to the public parts of the museum.

“Are you the curator? Can I come back? I just need another look at the detail work that’sreallyallIask – “

“That part of the museum is closed,” Nomura hissed, releasing Alex’s shoulder with a firm shove. She took a deep inhale and seemed to calm a bit. Alexandra smoothed her hair and glasses, her eyes wide and glassy.

“Please – “

“It will be open to the public next season.”

Nomura’s tone brook no argument, and Alex left in a flurry of tears and muttered curses. She didn’t stop walking until she was far into the town, where she ducked into a bank and removed her disguise in the bathroom. Sketchpad, glasses, and lacy overshirt were dumped in the trash, and she pulled her hair into a tight bun before washing off as much makeup as she could. From art student to shabby woman, with a blocky, angular face, a little too tall and far too toothy. She exited the bank with a carefree air, and the goblin that she spotted in the bushes didn’t give her a second glance.

One of the things she had learned early on was to never think while playing a part. If she had dwelled on her worry about being caught, or her regret about never establishing an identity in the Changeling echelons, or her questions about the current hierarchy in the ranks, she would never have gotten far. But back in Trollmarket she could dwell, and dwell she did.

She heavily regret never constructing a new identity for herself, one that she could merge into the community of Changelings around the world. She had cut herself off as a safety measure as soon as she could, but now she didn’t know who ranked what, who was where, who was even alive or dead or available for her to impersonate. If she had stayed, if she had made herself into someone important, she could have gathered so much more information, been privy to so many more secrets. The Changeling community was not exactly close-knit, every one of them being suspicious bastards, but knowing who was dead or not was extremely easy to confirm, making impersonation a rather difficult and convoluted job. She would have to first find another Changeling, then learn where they ranked, then learn who knew of their current appearance and location, then find a way to incapacitate them long enough for her to impersonate...simple spying would be easier.

Stricklander had always been one of the highest in the community, but Nomura had not. Alexandra remembered her from the Darklands, a mere trainer to those who had survived to be strong enough to carry a weapon. Now she was in Arcadia, housing the son of Gunmar in her museum. Did she outrank Stricklander now, or were they equals? Half of the time it depended on Bular or Gunmar’s mood, anyway.

She seemed to have control of the goblins in any case, unless wherever Stricklander was based simply didn’t have the room. But she was housing Bular…

Alex hadn’t seen any sign of a reconstructed bridge, although she hadn’t examined the contents of all of those boxes, but she knew what magic felt like and there was some strong magic going on in the museum. That, and the fact that Bular had his minions looking for pieces of the Bridge, was more than enough for her to reason that they were actually under construction, or at least had the material gathered in preparation for.

But before she went to Blinky with her suspicions, she needed to do a little research.

She bought a small dinner and tea, and wandered back to Kanjigar’s quarters. What had been fed to her in the Darklands about the Bridge and its history and magic was, much like Gunmar’s origin, probably twisted and misconstrued for propaganda.

Troll Bridges Across the European Continent, The Final Days: an account of the victory of Deya the Deliverer, and Historical Magical Artifacts all looked promising, and Alex hauled them from Kanjigar’s shelves for perusal. The activity of Trollmarket was a distant buzz in the far reaches of the cavern where the former Hunter’s quarters were located, and the business of her thoughts quieted some in the peace.

Her destroyed eye ached, and when she rubbed at it she noticed that the shivering hum in her chest was gone. The thrum of the Heartstone had replaced it without her noticing.

An hour, two geographical texts, and one Welsh troll census later, she found the location of the Heartstone that was located under Wales, where she had been born. Less than a hundred miles away from Bath, underneath the Vale of Neath and the Craig y Ddinas, the Dinas Rock, found within.

Her heartstone, which she had not felt for centuries, had been thrumming in her blood, and she hadn’t realized until she was across the damn ocean.

She’d been less than a hundred miles from her birthplace. From the place where she had been taken. From where she never had visited, nor had thought she would ever visit.

The Bridge conspiracy can wait an hour.

Blinky had several volumes in his library featuring the names and births of trolls all over the world; he was one of many record-keepers. Alex marched into his library and took every record-book written between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries before combing through Kanjigar’s own records and books.

Within twenty minutes she was neck-deep in Arthurian legend and Welsh mythology, and after four hours was taking shaky notes with both right hands, listing comparisons between myths and checking story against story.

Her eyes began to itch and droop after several hours of reading, but she found something in the third volume of genealogies belonging to Welsh trolls and their families. Most of the lines were long dead, though a few still remained around her original Hearthstone. There had been a mass egress of trolls from the British Heartstones and although there were a few records missing during the time of the migration, Alex managed to find a record of her birth family.

She wanted to throw something.

“Lineage of Daghildr the Dangerous, born 1343, died 1630.

Born app. 1050. Daughter of Dara, daughter of Drysi, and Finnyr, son of Ormr. Died 1678.

Children by Rollo, son of Seneca: Nerthuz Alexius, born app. 1338

Grandchildren by Gruffudd, son of Drusus: Blodwen Alexius, born app. 1629, died 1645; Volundr Alexius, born app. 1647, died 1802.”

And there she was. A single, incorrect entry, next to a brother she’d never known about.

Alexandra put down her pencil before she snapped it.

They’d written her off as dead.

Logically, she knew it was expected; not one entry, in any of the books, had logged a child down as ‘stolen by Gumm-Gumms’, but still. They marked her as dead, and to them, she was as good as.

She wondered very much how the many-armed Trollhunter had felt while seeing Alexandra in the Void, knowing that she was a Changeling and a member of her sister tribe.

Alexandra turned the page, and kept reading. The Trollhunter had given no indication, had offered no greeting. She’d probably never met Alexandra, even with the low birth rate of trolls, so one missing child from a different clan wouldn’t have…

…

…She picked up a different book.

I am not going to think about this.

Her mother was still alive, probably her father as well.

I am not going to think about this.

She wondered if her brother had been taken as well. She wondered if he was one of the Changed children too weak to survive or too slow or killed for sport or if she had killed him in competition or –

She was not going to think about this!

Alexandra threw the book across the room, vellum pages tearing free and scattering through the air.

Fuck them! Fuck all of them!

Hundreds of years of Trollhunters’ families littered the floor, and she had to refrain herself from going over and stomping on them, for all the good it would do.

“FUCK them!”

She remembered her family. In the aftermath of the war and the wake of the trolls’ sudden migration, protocols had been overlooked, rules had been ignored; Alex had been taken too late, assigned too early, given to a human family that was poorly-researched and sent in with minimal training. Most whelps were taken as infants, rarely over ten years old, when they were the most impressionable and more likely to forget their families. Alex had been small for her age and was taken too late. She remembered her family. She’d had time.

And they had written her off as dead. She was a shame to them the moment she was taken.

Like it was her goddamn fault. ..

Fervently she scanned through tomes and scrolls, barely taking anything in in her attempt to distract herself. Her lantern gently fluttered the walls with shadows as she absently re-arranged the bookshelves in order of color, glancing through anything with an interesting cover.

“…destroyer of the storm-sun,

beloved follower of the seeress…”

Kanjigar hadn’t marked her name down on his list of children stolen to the Darklands. Had she simply been overlooked? Had her family lied about what happened to her?

“…the seeds of Foeniculum vulgare are known to relieve ills of the stomach…”

How dare they write her off, as if she had done something shameful. Did they even mourn her? And what had killed off her brother? Had he been taken as well? Would she have met him in the Darklands, fought him, killed him…

“…None best the mighty power of she

To the Myrddin jewel beholden…”

She was the goddamn Trollhunter now. It didn’t matter now what they thought of her. Good or bad, she had ascended to the ‘highest of offices’, as Blinky said, had tricked her way into Trollmarket, had wounded the son of Gunmar…

“…And changed limb and form for war…”

Not a single GODdamn person was going to tell her that she wasn’t worthy when she had the amulet pulsing in her pocket, and she would be damned before she let anybody else throw her away like a dirty secret and

Wait

What…was that?

Alex re-opened the book she was shelving and slowly turned the pages, the light of her amulet translating the languages until she found what had caught her eye.

“Through stars and smoke lay many warriors slain

And haunting spirits’ cries all of stone and crystal shook

But fairest bane to darkest evil smote

And to her husband struck a mortal blow.

None best the mighty power of she

To the Myrddin gem beholden

In deadly light of day fearlessly strode the queen

And with dark arts changed limb and form for war.

OH…!

Alex spent a very long time reading and re-reading the Eddaic poems, and then ten minutes laying on Kanjigar’s nest, laughing until she ached and cried.

Deya the Deliverer had been a Changeling.

And absolutely no one knew.

A/N: YOU WANT BACK-ALLEY MURDER, YOU GET BACK-ALLEY MURDER! Honestly I was just too tired to write it when I posted last time, so here it is today.

I love my job, but it’s damn exhausting, especially since we’ve only got two techs, including myself. Working nine days at a time is the norm, but we’ve had a couple of two- or three-week stretches without days off. It’s getting better now that we’re using different medications and we’re not managing the seizure of two thousand neglected animals, but I could barely keep awake today. It’s funny because I also can’t bring myself to sleep. I’m going to get less than four hours at the time of typing this and I CANNOT STOP. Why do I do this. Why do I do this. So if this chapter has a note of exhaustion, that’s why.

Take note that this is the first time Alex is being nice to Blinky without an ulterior motive.

Update: We finally got a new tech and the hurricane really cleared us out, but it’s, it’s, I’m sorry. I’m tired and I think I finally just got sick of having this chapter being unfinished. So this chapter was written out of pure spite. I wonder if that reflects in the writing. I’m so done with this chapter. I hope it’s alright because I’m just spitting it out and don’t want to see its face again for another bloody month.

I was going to have Alex be the granddaughter of the many-armed Trollhunter, but that would have been too neat, too nice. I want her to have this thing because she’s destined for it, not because it’s her destiny as the granddaughter of a Trollhunter or some-such.

Some of the poetry is taken out of the Prose Edda book Skáldskaparmál, which I literally just got straight off of Wikipedia. I had such a bitch time writing that damn poem so I hope it sounds okay.

The ‘art student’ disguise is a homage to xerios’s fanfic Burning Bridges, which can be found on AO3 and is super good. As a former art student I can actually say that we can get away with a lot of shit if you just bring a camera or a sketchpad.

And I’m just going to point out that the name ‘Deya’ means ‘destroyer of her husband’. Make of that what you will.

#trollhunters #drabble #blinky #aaarrrgghh #vendel

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fika-forever · 8 years ago

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Into The Trollmarket

This Trollhunter!Strickler fic series thing is inspired by @changepherrox‘s art and written scenario of Walter meeting Barbara, pre-show, and becoming part of the Lake family. After finding his place in the human world, he comes upon the Trollhunter amulet and struggles between protecting his family, being a double agent… and secretly defending a Trollmarket that doesn’t particularly want a changeling for a Trollhunter.

-The First (along with @changepherrox’s art that inspired it) -A Brief Recapitulation of Troll-Changeling Friendships -Let Our Powers Combine!

(Also there has been more absolutely wonderful art by Changepherrox HERE and HERE please check them out)

In this fic: Blinky is cornered by Vendel and comes up with a really thin excuse as to why the Trollhunter hasn’t been seen in Heartstone Trollmarket yet.

It ends with a book.

Blinky doesn't know how he got away with it this long, honestly. It's been a mixture of luck and careful timing and he's been surprisingly fortunate, but sooner or later everything falls apart.

He is checking his list again, making sure he correctly remembers the titles of the texts that Walter has requested from his library, and running the tips of his fingers along the spines with an idle hand when, out of nowhere, he shivers. There is a sensation like knives stabbing into his back. Knives from a deadly glare.

"Blinkous Galadrigal." The creaky voice behind him promises untold depths of pain.

Blinky freezes, barely breathing, and turns slowly. "Vendel..." he replies weakly. "How... nice... to see you here. What brings you to my neck of the..."

"What brings me," Vendel interrupts, "is the rumor of a new trollhunter, and your frequent disappearances that lead me to believe that you know something." He stands in the doorway, arms folded, blocking the only escape route. "I would start talking, Blinkous."

Blinky audibly gulps.

Vendel's glare grows frostier. Blinky feels his own impending murder close around his neck like a vise.

"I- I... alright. I am aware of the next Trollhunter, but, Vendel, you must understand, and p-please do not make any hasty decisions, he has not made himself known yet because, well you see, do not take this the wrong way, but he is--"

"--shy." Walter repeated. And then again, because saying it once didn't make it any less ridiculous. "Shy."

"Would you rather that I had told him you are a changeling?" Blinky retorts.

AAARRRGGHH!!! is grinning like he thinks this is funny.

"You know," sighs Walter, wearily propping up his chin in his hands because he is tired of this nonsense and it's only barely begun, "At this point, I'm not even sure anymore. What did he say?"

"He wants to meet you, of course! He was, er, rather insistent." Walter watches as all twenty of Blinky's fingers drum together tensely. "He said he would meet with you tomorrow?"

Walter rolls his eyes. "How polite. He doesn't even bother to ask."

"Typically he doesn't need to."

This is going to go swimmingly, Walter can tell already.

Walter meets Blinky at dusk just outside of the overpass. He turns the amulet around and around in his fingers until he meets the six-eyed gaze of his advisor coming out of the portal, followed by a bulkier shape who gives a wave in greeting.

Blinky breathes in deep, puffs out his chest, and wraps his fingers around the braces of his pants, trying to seem more self-assured than Walter knows he is. "Are you ready?" He asks.

Walter's only reply is a glance down at the amulet. "For the Glory of Merlin, daylight is mine to command," he recites, and feels the magic as it curls around him, the armor settling into position, the helmet slowly forming around his head until he is wrapped in its protective warmth again.

He is the Trollhunter now, and with the anonymity of the helmet he is granted every bit of courage and self-assuredness that comes with such a position. He raises his head high and squares his shoulders and tries to pretend he's ready for this.

"Trollhunter," AAARRRGGHH!!! says supportively with crinkles at the corner of his eyes. "Looking good." Walter tosses him a salute.

"All right," he says with courage he does not feel, "shall we go in?"

When they step down and around that last twist in the staircase, Walter finally, finally gets a glimpse of Trollmarket.

It's a burst of light and color and activity and it's beautiful.

There is an energy here and it pulses straight through the armor, making his skin itch and his heart race. There is something in the atmosphere that he can almost feel himself breathing in and going right into his heart and lungs and through his blood and down all the tiny capillaries to the tips of his jittery fingers and it's wonderful and alien and strange.

"I feel..." he breathes, "Is this, is that the heartstone?" His brain is struggling to order his thoughts into coherent sentences and it's not working. He's drifting up, up, up, he's so full, it's like...

It's like he's been hungry his whole life and he just hadn't known.

"Heartstone," AAARRRGGHH!!! agrees.

"Yes," Blinky says, frowning slightly, "the life force of trollkind. It keeps us from crumbling into stone, and is a source of light and sustenance for those who dwell underg- are you all right?"

Walter blinks sluggishly. "I think so." He gives his whole body a shake. He suddenly has the urge to run a triathlon backwards but also kind of wants to fall asleep in the tingling warmth.

"Come on, then," Blinky murmurs, with a hand between Walter's shoulders. Walter haltingly tries to move in step but it takes him a moment to remember how his legs work.

He lets Blinky lead the way through the winding Market and focuses on trying not to make it obvious he's staring at the crowd that's pressing inwards and staring back at him. The whispers grow thick and heavy over the trolls of Trollmarket as they watch him with hawklike intent.

He knows they're wondering who he is, what he's doing. Where he's been. Why he hasn't been here. Sizing him up and finding him scrawny with far too few limbs. Judging and finding him wanting.

(He's watching them right back and trying not to wonder if any of them are his long lost motherbrothersistercousin-)

One troll whispers to a friend behind a hand and they both giggle and turn slightly red. What?

"So this," the ancient troll growls as he descends the rocky staircase, "is the new trollhunter."

This must be Vendel. Walter stiffens.

"I am Vendel, son of Rundle, son of Kilfred. Do you have anything to say for yourself? Why you've hesitated to show yourself to the very Trollmarket you are charged to guard?"

Shy, Walter reminds himself, and shrugs hesitantly.

“Amulet chose,” AAARRRGGHH!!! valiantly defends him.

"As you can see, he is shy. He's been working very, very hard, though, aboveground... to... protect Trollkind!" Blinky jumps in quickly.

Vendel raises a hand. "That's quite enough, AAARRRGGHH!!!, Blinkous. I want to hear it from him."

Walter's throat is suddenly very dry. "I-I'm shy," he says in the most tremulous voice he can muster, as he ponders in the back of his mind all the million ways he's going to kill Blinky for putting him in this position in the first place. He's a trained actor like any Changeling, but this is humiliating.

"Will this come between you and your duties as Trollhunter? You are our greatest line of defense."

"No, I can certainly do it. I've been told I'm very skilled at combat," Walter replies. He shuffles from foot to foot, trying to project nervousness, timidity, shyness.

["It's strange. You look rather... human-shaped,"] Vendel continues, in Trollish, eyes half-lidded but watchful as though looking to catch him in some sort of lie.

Walter takes a breath. He hopes against hope that his Darklands accent won't be too thick, that he can roll his tongue around the open vowels in a way that will sound, at the very most, like he hails from a different colony. ["I can't help my shape, sir."]

Vendel's eyes narrow suspiciously and Walter just knows this is it, this is when I die.

Then Blinky lets out a terrible fake laugh and slaps Walter on the shoulder so hard that he stumbles. "Ha! Ha ha! Well, here he is, you've met him, now we can all go on our merry way. Good day, very nice to see you again Vendel, but we have things to see, evil trolls to slay, really our schedule is very packed. Anyway-"

"-Then we should head to the Soothscryer immediately," Vendel interrupts sharply.

Walter feels himself break out into a cold sweat underneath the armor.

Blinky, to his credit, doesn't choke, although his voice does waver a bit. "Really, Vendel, our Trollhunter has just barely gotten his feet on the ground! You can't possibly expect..."

"I can and I will," Vendel replies, and starts plodding his way towards what can only be The Hero's Forge.

Walter turns to look at Blinky, who is looking back at him with regret and trepidation. Together they share a moment of pure panic.

"Coming, Trollhunter?" Vendel calls from up the path and Walter regrets this so very much.

“Will it kill me?” he hisses out of earshot of Vendel.

Blinky gives him a very complicated look that reads something along the lines of ‘no idea, but most probably’.

Walter has a family to protect. He knew his days were numbered the instant he held the amulet for the first time, and this changes nothing. But Jim will expect a ride home from school tomorrow, and Barbara was going to get out early and they were going to have a nice family dinner and he can feel it all slipping through his fingers in one terrifying instant. Every tiny piece of the life he’s built, crashing down.

He considers bolting for the exit and never coming back.

But he was destined to die at some point anyway. At least this way-

“Blinky, AAARRRGGHH!!!, take care of my family,” he says lowly. “Make sure Barbara takes care of herself and eats regularly. Help Jim with the upkeep of his Vespa, and don’t let him put too much on his shoulders…”

He has so much to say and so little time. Blinky squeezes his arm.

“We will help,” AAARRRGGHH!!! assures him quietly.

“If the amulet chose true,” Vendel says once the group has reconvened in the Forge, “the Soothscryer will reveal it.”

Walter, so tense he can barely unbend his legs enough to walk, moves forward. A great machine rises up out of the ground, glowing bright with chomping teeth. Walter has seen terrifying things in the Darklands but this is somehow worse than any of them.

“Insert your right hand, Trollhunter,” Vendel instructs.

Walter reaches out--

[to be continued]

#trollhunters #trollhunters fic #trollhunter strickler #trollhunter strickler au #this one's a bit more angsty in places #whoops #at least it has a bit of humor to balance it out maybe?

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 5 years ago

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Chapter 39: Many Matters Up For Consideration

Content warning for this chapter: some unintentional misgendering of a gender-fluid character occurs. Walt knows Bernie's preference is "if it's unclear which pronoun set I'm currently using, use 'they/them'," but Walt is also out of practice checking if there is a pronoun set Bernie is currently using other than 'they/them', and so refers to Bernie as 'they/them' while the audience knows Bernie is using 'she/her'.

Becoming the Mask

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"So, what did Blinky say when he dragged you off earlier?" Toby asked Jim.

The Changeling rolled over in his sleeping bag and propped himself up on one arm, facing the bed.

"He apologized for some stuff he said when he found out what I am, and he told me where troll babies come from. Whelps incubate in Heartstone chunks called 'birthstones' – which I think explains the thing about Gunmar's Birthstone being 'a rotten Heartstone'. It makes a lot more sense now. Like calling someone 'a bad seed' or 'a bad egg'. Birthstones are kind of like fish eggs, except both parents fertilize it externally. And it takes thirty years for one to hatch."

"Wow."

"I know, right? I wonder if some Changelings might've been taken as birthstones instead of whelps. I mean, it's got to be easier to carry a rock than a squirmy baby. I know I'd already hatched by the time I was changed, because I kind of remember it, but that's probably just so we actually know stuff by the time the age pause switches over to our Familiar."

"You remember getting turned into a Changeling?"

"Kind of," said Jim again. "It hurt a lot, especially my hands because I grew an extra finger on each one. And there were other Changelings there, too, and … our Creator."

He said the last part softly. Toby took that to mean Jim didn't want to talk about it. Them. Whatever.

"… Do you remember anything from … before? Like, your first family?"

"No, that's mostly blocked out. I half-remember being warm? And some blurry noises and smells? But I don't know if any of those are real memories or just something I invented. Like, I figure one of my parents must have been blue, but I don't remember that, I just think it because I am. And I've always been really drawn to soft things, so I think one of them might've had fur and I subconsciously remember that? But I don't actually know."

Toby didn't mean to snort, really, but –

"One blue and one with fur? So, Blinky and AAARRRGGHH?"

There was a moment of silence before Jim huffed amusedly. "Well, Blinky did just give me The Talk. But if I were going to claim any troll as my dad, I'd probably say Stricklander."

"Wait, if you guys are both Changelings, doesn't that make you the same age?"

"No, no, he's, like, centuries older than me. Enrique's around my age, though."

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Bernie increased magnification and switched forms. It was a habit of hers. Trolls and humans had evolved in different lighting conditions, so troll eyes could catch a detail that human eyes could not, and vice versa.

Bular's death was tragic, of course, a deep setback to the Order's plans and an agonizing blow to the Underlord (or would be, once someone was brave enough to bear the bad news), but his remains offered a wealth of knowledge. Bernie intended to wring every scrap of information possible from the stones.

The Janus Order had not had troll remains available for study since before most of Bernie's lab equipment had been invented. Changelings who died in troll form tended to explode. Bernie had samples of the dust and was eager to see how Bular's chemical composition compared. She felt like a human paleontologist studying a mostly intact dinosaur fossil after decades working with tiny bone fragments.

First she was running a series of passive tests on the stones. More intrusive testing could wait until she and Otto and Stephan had rebuilt Bular enough that she could take samples from pre-determined areas. There could be any number of factors differentiating between what had been his horn or his stomach or his tail, and the chemical analysis would run more smoothly if she knew what she was testing.

The stones were not responsive to blacklight and showed no response to infrared other than warming up. Bernie hadn't quite dared expose Bular's remains to ultraviolet light yet – it shouldn't do anything, with the tissue already dead, but she didn't want to risk degrading the samples so early on when there was such a finite quantity. She was using infrared and ultraviolet cameras as well as a standard one to record everything.

"So far," said Bernie aloud to the video cameras, "Bular seems to be composed of a sedimentary version of the same mineral that comprises Changeling dust. That suggests we aren't as different from unaltered trolls as previously believed. Possibly the changes are more noticeable in live tissue."

She wished he had been willing to provide tissue samples while still alive. The Son of Gunmar had made it clear in life he was not interested in indulging Changeling curiosity. Decades ago, Bernie developed a formula that should work as a sunblock for trolls, but the Gumm-Gumm prince had taken offence at the request that he, as the one sun-sensitive troll available, consider testing it, and the Changeling scientist had gotten broken ribs and a broken wrist for the 'insult'. After that, Bernie stopped asking for the troll's aid in experiments.

Between comparing Bular's remains to Changeling dust and cross-referencing that with some of the old notes recovered from the Pale Lady's workshops, Bernie might be able to reverse-engineer how Changelings were made. Their numbers were limited with their Lady currently inaccessible, but if new technology could substitute for raw magical power, then their numbers could grow once more.

Bernie would meditate at the gramophone to seek Her Ladyship's approval before actually trying to recraft the formula, of course. Bernie Sturges was a lot of things, but not a blasphemer.

(Bernie thought of herself as 'Bernie' all the time, regardless of how her gender fluctuated, but classically-gendered names like 'Bernard' and 'Bernadette' were a useful verbal shorthand, to sidestep having 'the pronoun conversation' with every casual acquaintance and speed up telling those 'in the know' which pronouns to use at the moment.)

She switched back to human form to write a few more notes. She liked having a written record as well as audio-visual.

"The fact these remains are Bular's, specifically, raises another possible field of comparison," Bernie mused. "A comparison to the Eye of Gunmar may yield vital data, not only on how our eyes work, but on how genetic ties manifest in living stone. It is hypothetically possible some Changelings are related and don't know it."

Maybe siblings, maybe cousins, maybe an aunt or uncle and their niece or nephew.

"Will investigate the vault and determine which security measures I need to override to access the sample."

Bernie had been living on the base since Stricklander had sent the Order into deep cover. She was between human identities at the moment, so her disappearance would draw less notice in the world above than trying to slap a new cover together in a rush. Fortunately, she maintained a small apartment just off the lab, in case of projects which couldn't be left unsupervised.

The base had three underground stories. Bernie's lab was on the middle one, but off to the side so that any explosions could be contained by the emergency blast doors and nothing was directly above or below.

The vault was down a level and on the opposite side of the base. It had been built to store the gramophone, before it was determined that the magical wards interfered with the signal, pieces of Killahead Bridge, before construction had begun, and two other artifacts which were considered too vital to move about without direct instructions from the Order's head or the Pale Lady herself.

Bernie swapped her safety glasses for a mask and brought a few of her smaller scanners along. If she could get into the vault, she could run some tests on Gunmar's Eye before reporting the security system's weaknesses.

To her surprise and concern, the Order's head was already standing at the vault's door.

"Stricklander," she greeted. Bernie never bothered with introducing herself to him, because –

"Dr Sturges."

– Stricklander always called her that. She had a few doctorates by now, from decades infiltrating human universities to keep up with their scientific progress. 'Bernadette Sturges' was not so accredited as 'Bernard Sturges' yet, but the degrees under Bernadette's name were more recent.

"I'd like to access the Eye of Gunmar," she said, because it wasn't like Bernie had any other excuse for being on this level and Stricklander usually supported her studies.

"… Why?"

"I've been examining Bular's remains," which he'd know if he'd read the reports she'd been leaving on his desk, but he might not have been to his on-base office recently, "and I wanted to do a comparative study. Since we know they're related."

Stricklander frowned.

"You have fortunate timing, Dr Sturges," he said after a moment. "The Eye of Gunmar is about to be moved to a classified location." More classified than a secret underground bunker? Well, if Stricklander was the only one to know where the new location was, that would be more secure than a vault most Changelings knew about. "I see no problem with you studying it under supervision for the next few hours."

Opening the vault was a complicated affair. There was a Changeling lock, of course, to keep out any other trolls or humans who somehow got into the base, and then a combination lock, and then some other form of combination lock involving floating, glowing runes that Stricklander rearranged into what was probably a password – Bernie could read trollish but it still looked like gibberish – and then some kind of scanner for which Stricklander changed to his troll form.

Inside was dark and surprisingly spacious. Perhaps not surprising, considering it had held about half of the Bridge at one time. There was a shelf along the back wall, which held two boxes, kept a respectful distance apart from one another. Each box sent a faint light up the wall and to the ceiling.

Bernie was mildly surprised that both boxes were open. One would think they'd be kept sealed so that, on the off-chance a thief made it this far, they might still grab the wrong artifact.

One, the Eye of Gunmar, glowed blue. The other, the Inferna Copula, glowed golden.

"I should study the Inferna Copula as well," said Bernie. "Not now, but at some point. Legend says it's a metamorphosed piece of Angor Rot's own flesh, which he sacrificed as an offering to our Lady when he swore himself to her service."

Stricklander took the box with the eye. Bernie stayed near the vault door, ready to bolt for it if her presence set off another security system.

"He could avenge Bular," Bernie realized. "He's slain Trollhunters before, in our Lady's name."

Stricklander let out a sharp but quiet gasp. He handed Bernie the eye box and took the ring box.

"I think I had best keep this close for now."

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Walter was nearly positive that Dr Sturges was working with Otto. Sturges hadn't been told the full story of Bular's demise, or they wouldn't be so open with Walt about their current project.

As Sturges examined Gunmar's Eye, talking to the various recording devices set up in the lab, Walt examined Sturges' notes. Sturges had copies of papers recovered from several of the Pale Lady's workshops, which the Order's linguistics and cryptography team had done their best to decipher and translate. Sturges was no linguist, and only a hobbyist cryptographer, but insisted on having copies of the original pages as well as translations.

The papers Walt was studying had to do with Angor Rot.

Angor had turned to the Pale Lady midway through Gunmar's first war for the surface. A few history records that Jim had recovered from Blinkous' library claimed Angor had been a hero, once, defending trollkind from the Gumm-Gumms. Perhaps that was what had driven Angor to Morgana, seeking the same power that her rival Merlin had bestowed on the Trollhunters?

If so, it seemed she had gifted him with even greater power, because at least four Trollhunters were confirmed to have died at Angor's hands, and half a dozen more were rumoured.

Angor was controlled by the Inferna Copula, the ring which contained his soul. Wielding it was hazardous; every past bearer had died gruesomely, either as or shortly after it was taken from them. The assassin himself had vanished centuries ago, supposedly having been imprisoned by Merlin, but the Janus Order had acquired his ring.

Walt could not let Otto get it. If there was a chance Angor Rot was still alive, Otto could set him against Jim, and Walter himself.

But, looking at Morgana's notes about her Champion, and the weak and sentimental heart which brought him to her … If Angor were alive, and Walt were to get to him first …

It would be a foolish quest; more foolish than the quest for the Triumbric Stones, considering that those, at least, were known to still exist.

Walt couldn't just pack up and leave Arcadia. It wouldn't look entirely suspicious to his fellow Changelings, for him to up and leave the town guarded by a Trollhunter strong enough to slay Bular, but it could incite panic and mass exodus.

And who could he leave in charge in his stead, who wouldn't be killed or overthrown but also wouldn't overthrow him? Nomura, maybe. 'A last chance to redeem yourself after the Bridge was stolen from your post.' But could he trust her that much? Could he afford to put her in the position of becoming the scapegoat if anything went wrong with the Order in his absence?

He couldn't send someone else to retrieve Angor Rot. That only raised the same questions, of who wouldn't either be killed or keep the assassin in their own service.

And could Walt really afford to take away the token protection his presence gave Jim against Otto, even for a short while in exchange for a chance to acquire a more powerful ally?

He put down the papers and examined the ring. Gold, chunky but spiky; its bulk reminded him of some Borgia rings he'd seen or worn in the past, with their hidden compartments for poison. He couldn't find any mechanisms. More out of curiosity than anything, Walt tried it on.

Vines and moss and the crushing weight of stone. Sunlight filtered through gaps in an old roof, not quite able to reach him and burn him. Arms and legs spread uncomfortably and held firm, even after centuries. Tired. Hungry. Thirsty.

Walt pulled the ring off quickly. He didn't have a perfect internal compass, but the connection between the ring and the troll had created one, if only for a moment.

Angor Rot was alive, and Walter Strickler knew exactly where to find him.

[Tumblr used to have a line break option but for some reason it isn’t here anymore?]

Previous Chapter (Barbara agrees to let Jim move back home)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Toby warns Claire, Mary, and Darci that Barbara wants to tell their families about trolls)

In the episode It's About Time, Jim gets a vision of where Angor is when he puts on the Inferna Copula. This 'inner compass' idea explains how he found him so quickly when Arcadia has a lot of sewer tunnels and there was no reason Jim should recognize that particular spot, and in this fic I'm using it to explain how Strickler finds Angor without Otto also along on the journey.

I'm ignoring the spinoff novel which claimed Angor made his deal with Morgana after the Battle of Killahead, because I don't think that makes nearly as much sense as it being a pre-Killahead thing. Angor specifically mentions that Gunmar's war ravaged his village. It could be interpreted as Angor wanting to protect his vulnerable displaced/rebuilding people after the war is over, but I think his phrasing makes the most sense if Gunmar is still free to threaten them further.

I am keeping, at least as a rumour, the spinoff novel’s claim that Merlin was the one to chain Angor up and trap him under a pile of rubble in an isolated building.

#Becoming The Mask chapters #Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #fanfiction #Changeling Jim #Tobias Domzalski #Original Character #Changelings #Walter Strickler #also #Angor Rot #There are many names for Pale Lady Morgana Argante Baba Yaga Mistress Of Shadows The Eldritch Queen #TOA novels and comics #My Fanfiction #Monday is fanfic day!

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 6 years ago

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Chapter 37: Tension

Becoming the Mask

Stricklander managed to avoid mentioning there was a Janus Order base in Arcadia when he promised to retrieve Gunmar's Eye. Jim was pretty sure Blinky and AAARRRGGHH had worked it out for themselves, but the troll adults would also hopefully have the sense not to seek it out, while the human children could not be trusted to make such a judgement call.

It still burned the young Changeling sometimes, realizing he hadn't noticed he was being followed.

Everyone started looking through the cartography and geography texts to create a list of most likely mountains where the Birthstone would be hidden.

"Perhaps Mount Atlas," suggested Stricklander. Jim half-laughed. Everyone else looked at them in confusion.

"He's, ah, called me Atlas a few times," Jim explained, ducking his head over a guidebook of Banff National Park. Oldest national park in Canada, eh?

After a few minutes, Blinky got up. "There is something Master Jim and I need to discuss privately. The rest of you should continue the search."

He pulled the Trollhunter into the next room. Jim brought the guidebook with him, mostly so he'd have something to do with his hands. He couldn't fidget with the Amulet while he was armoured up.

"To begin with, Master Jim, I must apologize."

"… For … what?" The Changeling braced himself, in case his trainer was about to say 'this' and begin a surprise attack.

"You are a troll. I should never have implied otherwise. I am … deeply sorry, and hope you can forgive me."

Jim was not sure how to respond to that. He was still a little angry about Blinky's immediate denial upon learning Jim was a troll. He was glad for the apology – he hadn't expected it, had thought at best that it would just never be brought up again – but he didn't know if he was ready to accept it yet.

Blinky had paused, but continued speaking, sparing Jim the need to sort out his feelings and make a decision right away.

"As a troll, there are certain things you have a right and responsibility to know about your own biology. Such as where troll babies come from."

Uh-oh. If Blinky really did remember every "we'll come back to that later" point of tonight, Jim was in for a lot of awkward discussions he'd thought he had managed to dodge.

"I kind of assumed the gronk-nuks were involved?" Jim sat down uncertainly on a low bookcase. This room didn't have chairs.

Blinky cleared his throat. "Trolls biologically have two parents. Each parent removes a fragment of their living stone – yes, from the gronk-nuks – and they join the facets together to form one. The seed crystal is then implanted into a birthstone, where the whelp grows and develops over the next thirty years before emerging."

"So … trolls kind of hatch from eggs?" Jim scratched the side of his head, just under the lip of his helmet. "Externally fertilized eggs, like how some kinds of fish do it. Can any kind of rock be a birthstone?"

"Heartstone is ideal. Vendel told you, I believe, that it can be harvested for many purposes?"

Jim nodded.

"But overharvesting would probably kill it," the Changeling speculated, "which is part of why trolls have a low birthrate? So the population stays within what the Heartstone can sustain?"

That explained why the Gumm-Gumms hadn't procreated in the Darklands … Jim remembered hearing Dictatious say that Gunmar's throne was carved into a Heartstone, but its glow hadn't felt anything like the one in Trollmarket, so he doubted that was really the case.

"The population is at a low ebb while communities recover or establish themselves after the war," said Blinky. "Centuries of having whelps snatched away made many couples hesitant to produce them."

Jim's mouth tightened. Blinky winced and shook his head, looking away.

"I hadn't intended to lead into that point."

"We know where we come from."

"Do you?" Blinky sounded so innocently startled, looked so harmlessly intrigued. Jim didn't think he meant his questions to be cruel. "Do you remember your parents?"

"I meant we know that we're taken. And written off as dead. And can't go back. Because, if we tried, they'd kill us for real. They don't want us anymore."

Jim tried so hard not to connect that with Barbara telling him to get out. I can't do this.

By the Pale Lady, if Blinky used this as a springboard to bring up again Jim suggesting Claire's brother be swapped, Jim wasn't sure how he would respond.

Instead, Blinky … sniffled? And hugged him.

Jim tensed up, his armour ready to create that concussive burst – he couldn't quite do it at will yet but he could feel it coming – and then Blinky's upper hands were where Jim's scruff would be if Jim were in troll form, and Jim's head was tucked under Blinky's chin, and Jim felt so amazingly secure that his armour melted away. He heard the Amulet roll under the bookcase.

"I know you've had a hard life," said Blinky. "All of you Changelings. Harder than I can ever truly understand, not having lived it myself. I cannot undo that, and I cannot personally change every troll's opinion. There will always be those who see you as a painful reminder of the children we could not protect. But by Deya's grace, if by some miracle you succeed in turning your fellow Changelings to our side, I will do all that I can to ensure that each one of you has a home and a family in Trollmarket."

Jim basked in the hug for a moment longer before extracting himself. Blinky let him go. Jim brushed at his stinging eyes.

"Once trolls are willing to trust us with kids, it'll be good for the adoption rate," he tried to joke."… I don't follow."

"Orphans? Foster kids? Changelings are sterilized. So, if we become part of the local troll community, any Changeling who wants kids would be adopting them."

Blinky looked nearly as horrified at the word 'sterilized' as he had when Stricklander confessed to book burning.

The humans and Changelings left Trollmarket shortly after three in the morning. Jim had forgotten to turn on his phone alarm to remind them to leave at two.

Jim and Toby returned to the Domzalski house to find Barbara helping Nana bake cookies. Half-full mugs were abandoned on the table, as were a pair of wine glasses and a bottle of … well, Jim was pretty sure it was meant to be cooking sherry, but it could still technically be drunk, and evidently had been.

"Butterscotch chips make cookies extra special." Nana nodded sagely to herself.

"Hey, Nana. Dr L." Toby gave them a shiny metallic smile.

"Toby. Jim."

"Oh, good, you boys are just in time for cookies!"

Jim snatched one off the cooling rack and stuffed it into his mouth to avoid having to speak.

He hadn't been expecting to see his mother again so soon. What – what did he even call her, he wondered wildly. He couldn't stand it if she told him not to call her 'Mom', but he didn't know if he could call her 'Barbara' to her face, and 'Dr Lake' felt too formal and distant, unless that was what she wanted, but he couldn't know unless he asked or until after making a faux pas …

Also, how much had she told Nana? How much did either of them assume that Toby knew? This situation was not stable.

Why was she here? Did she want him to come home?

(Was he ready to go home? Of course he would go if she asked him to, Barbara needed him, he missed her, and if he said 'no' now he might not get another chance to say 'yes' later, but was he ready to move back in with someone who had thrown him out once already?)

Jim swallowed his cookie and settled for saying, "Hi."

Previous Chapter (Talking about where the Triumbric Stones are hidden)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Jim and Barbara talk)

A lot of the troll reproduction details were inspired by what was mentioned in the spinoff novel Way of the Wizard. Requirements of the birthstone were not actually covered there, nor was the troll 'embryo' referred to as a 'seed crystal', nor were the gronk-nuks directly referenced - those bits are just speculation on my part.

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magic-and-moonlit-wings · 6 years ago

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Chapter 20: Saving Face

Becoming the Mask

Text that is both bolded and italicized indicates trollish.

"How're you holding up, Jim?" Toby opened up his half-made sandwich to put the vegetables on it.

Lunches by Chef Jimbo that required a final, in-cafeteria step to assemble weren't that odd, but usually they were more complicated than cold cuts and veggie slices. This was Jim's 'day off' lunch, for days when something was stressing him out to the point where he didn't even feel like cooking, or didn't have the time.

"Not great," Jim admitted. "… Did you talk to Draal this morning?"

"I've met that guy, like, twice. Plus, don't trolls sleep during the day?"

"We had a fight."

Toby gasped. "But – you don't look smushed."

"More of a 'hurt feelings' fight." Jim's hands tightened on his sandwich. He put it down without taking a bite. "He said I was unworthy of the Amulet. Then I said it still picked me, so I was obviously more worthy than him. And, considering his dad was the Trollhunter before me and Draal really wanted the job …"

"Ouch. Like in The Book Of Life, when Manolo told Joaquin he'd never be as great a hero as his father. What the heck set all that off?"

Jim grimaced and shook his head. Toby could respect that.

"Got a plan for apologizing?"

Jim hated having anyone mad at him. The very few times he and Toby fought, Jim was usually first to try and make amends.

"Wait for tonight, so he's had some time to cool down, then say sorry and see if he's ready to hear that. If he's not … I dunno. Go into the Void and ask his dad's ghost for advice, maybe."

"If you need to avoid him for a bit, you can crash with me and Chompsky."

Jim half-smiled and started eating, which meant he wasn't tensed up with nerves anymore. Toby patted himself on the back.

Barbara parked, neatened her hair in the rear view mirror, and sighed over her steering wheel. She wanted to go home, wolf down some food, take a hot, soothing shower, and collapse into bed. Instead, she'd agreed to meet her son's teacher for lunch.

"For Jim," she reminded her reflection. Her child needed his remaining parent to be involved in his life.

There were a few tables set up outside the café. Seated at one of them was a man in a brown jacket and blue turtleneck. She didn't notice him until he stood when she walked past.

"Dr Lake?" Barbara jumped a bit.

"Yes–? Oh." She recognized his accent from the phone. He probably guessed by her teal scrubs. "You must be Mr Strickler." She put on a smile and held out her hand to shake. He kissed it instead, making her blush.

"Indeed. Lovely to meet you at last." He pulled out the chair opposite him and she sat. It was so nice to be off her feet.

A waiter appeared, or perhaps Mr Strickler had signalled them now that she'd arrived, and asked if they wanted drinks to start. Barbara ordered a coffee. Mr Strickler asked for something she assumed was a blend of tea.

"I'll start by repeating that Jim's not in trouble." He folded his hands on the table. "I've noticed he occasionally has trouble staying awake, or that his focus seems to drift, snapping back to attention when called upon but wandering again soon after."

"That sounds like he's tired. He's always up early … I'll talk to him about when he's going to bed." Barbara had heard, and seen evidence at the hospital, that a lot of teenagers were sleep-deprived. With the way Jim tried to take care of her …

"He also has a habit of, shall we say, overstretching himself," said Mr Strickler, following the same train of thought as Barbara. "Taking on more than his share of responsibilities."

The waiter returned with their drinks. Barbara hadn't even looked at the menu's lunch options. She took a gulp of coffee and ordered the first thing she spotted with 'sandwich' in the description; a 'croque monsieur'. Mr Strickler ordered the same thing.

Maybe it was the hunger or the exhaustion talking but it actually sounded more appetizing when he said it.

"With all respect," continued Mr Strickler, once the waiter left, "Jim's behaviour is not uncommon among children whose parents have demanding careers; they seek to ease the pressure on their parents by being helpful –"

Barbara nodded; that certainly sounded like Jim.

"– Or they see the sheer number responsibilities their parents hold, and conclude this is a normal level of activity for anyone. Or, in some cases, are encouraged to be perfect because their reputation reflects back on their family, but I don't believe that's the case with Jim."

Barbara fidgeted with a napkin. "I've never meant to put him under pressure … But I have, ah, encouraged some of his habits."

Like the cooking, or cleaning the house, or doing yard work, or helping her budget the utilities …

She'd viewed it as practical, teaching Jim things like how to operate a washing machine or handle money so he'd know how to do it when he was living on his own, but, was she interfering with his academic education, letting him take on – praising him for taking on – so many responsibilities at home?

Mr Strickler touched her hand, lightly, briefly, bringing her back to the present.

"Jim is a kind boy," he said. "He wants to help people. But it's impossible to help everyone, and Jim," the teacher steepled his fingers and contemplated his words, "Jim is young enough to not necessarily recognize his limits."

Over lunch – croque monsieur turned out to be a ham and cheese sandwich fried in white sauce – they discussed ways to encourage Jim to cut back without making it sound like his helpfulness was being rejected or like he was being criticized for not being able to do enough.

They didn't come to any solid conclusions. Barbara could encourage Jim to sleep or ease up on his chores; both adults could remind Jim of the importance of taking care of himself; but Barbara didn't want to ground him from extracurriculars or socialization to force him to rest. It hadn't gotten to that point, and hopefully it never would.

"I should be getting back to the school," said Mr Strickler, checking his watch. He uncapped the pen he'd toyed with off and on during their conversation and scribbled onto a sticky note from one of his jacket's inside pockets. "My phone, Dr Lake."

"Please, call me Barbara."

She took the phone number and he kissed her hand again.

"Barbara." Her name sounded lovely with his accent. "Walter. Do call if there's anything you'd like to discuss."

He summoned the waiter and paid their cheque and then he was gone, and Barbara was left feeling unsure if she'd just had an unorthodox parent-teacher conference or an even more unorthodox first date.

She went home and had the relaxing shower and nap she'd been craving.

Draal was conflicted. He was unaccustomed to that feeling. He did not care for it.

He wanted to believe he had done the right thing, not killing the Changeling immediately upon discovery.

He wanted to believe the Amulet of Merlin knew what it was doing when it chose … one of them … to be the Trollhunter.

He wanted to believe Jim's oath to turn against Gunmar was genuine, and not yet another act.

There was a pipe in the centre of the basement, and if Draal stood by it, he could hear nearly everything from the main story of the house. He'd heard Jim quietly threatening Nomura over Barbara's safety last night.

He should've been listening at the pipe when Nomura first came to the house; he might've learned more about what the Changelings were up to –

Draal's failings aside; the exchange he had eavesdropped on suggested Jim had been truthful about Barbara still being human instead of another Changeling collaborator, and that he felt a certain level of protectiveness for her, matching his explanation of why he'd let Draal move in.

As Blinky and AAARRRGGHH had each independently pointed out, Jim could have simply, easily, killed Draal that night, instead of agreeing to expose himself as a Changeling.

Or Jim could have stayed out of the fight, rather than exposing himself as the Trollhunter to protect Nomura.

If the helmet materialized with a faceplate, Draal still wouldn't know what Jim really was.

They hadn't spoken on the return journey from Trollmarket. Jim hadn't come downstairs before leaving the house that morning, either. Draal had gone upstairs midmorning to scavenge some food. A pile of cans waited for him in the blue box in the kitchen.

He brought them back to his living space and sat behind the furnace, on the blanket Jim had given him when he moved in, now somewhat ragged after a few encounters with Draal's spikes. He slowly snacked his way through cans and coal, and stared at the little Heartstone piece.

Why had Jim given him that? It wasn't like Draal had been expecting one. The Changeling could've kept it for himself. Jim had, by his own confession, been working for Gunmar up until last night, and that was assuming he really had changed sides.

That was what made Changelings dangerous, Draal supposed. They thought differently than normal trolls. You never knew what they were thinking. And even when you knew that, you still found yourself wanting to trust them.

Draal really hoped he had done the right thing.

Barbara woke up when Jim got home from school.

"Hey, Mom." He hugged her hello. Jim had never outgrown how affectionate he'd been as a small boy. Barbara hoped he never decided he was 'too old' to hug his mother. "How was your day?"

"I had lunch with your history teacher."

Jim's shoulders tensed, just slightly, under her hands – typical teenaged surprise and alarm over unforewarned parent-teacher interaction? Or, wait, with how Barbara phrased it, did Jim think she meant she'd gone on a date? Well, she was uncertain herself, but never mind that now.

"He's worried you aren't getting enough sleep."

"Oh, that." He relaxed in her arms. "Yeah, he's asked me if I'm sleeping okay. My eyes just bag up really easily, I guess."

Barbara held Jim out a short ways from her, examining him for signs of fatigue. Noticeable bags under his eyes, yes, he'd started getting those when he was twelve, but his pediatrician hadn't been concerned when Barbara mentioned it. Jim wasn't swaying on his feet, and his eyes were focused, and he wasn't jittery like he'd been using caffeine or sugar to compensate for exhaustion.

"Jim … if you ever need a break. A mental health day? One less chore on the roster? I get it, okay? You're a kid. A very responsible, considerate kid, but still a kid, and you need time to be a kid. And I'm your mom. It's my job to take care of you. So if you need anything, you know you can tell me, right?"

"Do what's good for you, or you're no good to anybody," Jim recited.

Mr Strickler – Walter – had shared the same quote at lunch when he asked Barbara when she'd last had time off, and gently suggested taking some might demonstrate to Jim that it was okay to prioritize oneself once in a while. Adolescents, whatever they may claim of their near-adulthood and independence, do look to actual adults for guidance, approval, and example.

"I know, Mom," said Jim. "I don't feel like I need anything right now, but I'll give it some thought and get back to you, okay? We could … revisit the topic this weekend?"

What books were on those packed shelves of his? Sometimes Jim talked like he was an office manager or something. He hadn't picked it up from her.

It was a good idea, though, so Barbara agreed.

"If you and Mr S met for lunch, then the three-bean salad's been marinating all day, not just for the morning. We can have that for dinner. Maybe a light soup and some rolls. I think we still have some frozen from last time."

"Mr Strickler seems very nice," said Barbara. "And he really likes you. I've never seen a teacher take such an interest before."

Jim, now rummaging in the freezer, made a vague affirmative noise.

"Is he single?"

Jim bumped his head on the ice cube tray.

"Um, I think so? His office has a bunch of curios but no family photos." Which implied the lack of them wasn't because he didn't care to personalize his workspace.

Jim had no confirmation Stricklander was on board with the plan yet, but Barbara spending time with Stricklander and getting him attached to her seemed to be off to a good start. That would be a good backup to keep her alive if Gunmar won anyway and Jim was exposed as a traitor.

Once his mother was asleep, he went downstairs to update Draal before going to Trollmarket.

"I've been working on our cover story. If any of the humans ask, we had a sparring match last night. I lost. You got mad and accused me of slacking off in training and said I was unworthy of the Amulet. I got mad and said I was still more worthy than you since it picked me. You took that as an insult to your father, and I apologized for that but we're both still upset; that's why things are awkward between us now."

"You didn't tell them what you really are?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm in enough trouble that Nomura knows you know; I'd be dead meat if it got out Blinky and AAARRRGGHH know, and the humans'd be dead meat with me if they knew, too."

"Hello, Trollhunter."

"… Blinky?"

"I know you speak this language. Did I actually teach you anything in our lessons?" Blinky asked bitterly.

"Blinky …" Jim scuffed his foot on the floor. "I'm sorry I … lied to you, about how much I knew. But you really did teach me a lot. I knew … keywords, before; every Changeling does, in case we overhear something about Killahead or Gunmar. I knew directions and distances and quantities. I understood … many words I heard you say. But the syntax and grammar and etiquette and culture were all new to me. That first thing you taught me, that greeting? It is my honour to meet you. I had never heard that before. I was barely literate. I … I faked how much I needed to learn, but, yes, I did learn from you."

"You don't actually know our verb for 'to deceive', do you? I'm fairly certain that comes under the heading of irony."

"Um, only as a noun. It's deception, right?"

Blinky rummaged in his pockets and got out a notebook. "Deception. Deceiving. To deceive. It's a regular verb, following the same rules as to see. Now, I have a number of questions about my brother I'd like you to answer."

"Okay. Deception, deceiving, to deceive, same rules as to see," Jim muttered. "I don't exactly know Dictatious well, but we've met."

"Describe him. I want to be sure we really are talking about the same troll."

"Okay. He mostly looks like you, except green instead of blue, nose is dark grey instead of orange, and … his horns point more up than back?"

Jim made an upward-sweeping gesture from his own head.

"Hair sticks up, too. It's got a couple of white streaks that might not've been there when you last saw him. And … I don't know if you know who Mark Hamill is, but he's a human actor and I've seen some of his movies and they sound alike. Like, uncannily alike."

Blinky slumped and sighed into his list of questions. "That's him. Next question. When and how and why did he join Gunmar?!"

Jim recoiled from the shouted inquiry.

"Survival? Maybe? I wasn't there. I'm not old enough to remember anything before Killahead closed. But either he was a double-agent already who got stuck in the Darklands with us, or he was too close and got pulled in by accident and offered the Underlord his services in order to not get killed."

Previous Chapter (Jim is convinced to turn against Gunmar)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (A breather episode after all this drama!)

The Book Of Life is a movie that canonically exists in the world of this show. Mary is giving a report on it during her Spanish Comprehension exam in the episode that introduces Gnome Chompsky. Guillermo del Toro was involved in both that movie and this show.

HannaVictoria from AO3 jokingly suggested Jim mention to Blinky that Dictatious sounds like Mark Hamill, his voice actor. I went for it.

In English, 'see' is an irregular verb. But trollish grammar is different, so I decided it would be a regular verb (one that conjugates based on consistent rules) in their language.

#Becoming The Mask chapters #trollhunters #Changeling Jim #fanfiction #Tobias Domzalski #Book of Life #Draal #parallels #Dr Barbara Lake #Walter Strickler #Stricklake #foods and beverages #conversation #Blinkous Galadrigal #Dictatious Maximus Galadrigal #Monday is fanfic day!

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fika-forever · 8 years ago

Text

A Brief Recapitulation of Troll-Changeling Friendships

This takes place during and after this fic thing, which was inspired by @changepherrox‘s art and the written scenario of Walter meeting Barbara, pre-show, and becoming part of the Lake family. After finding his place in the human world, he comes upon the Trollhunter amulet and struggles between protecting his family, being a double agent... and secretly defending a Trollmarket that doesn’t particularly want a changeling for a Trollhunter.

You probably want to read the first fic thing before checking this out. Again, I haven’t seen Trollhunters in a month or so, so inaccuracies probably occur. Thank you so much for the ideas and conversation, @changepherrox! I’ve been really inspired. I hope this lives up to what you were imagining. Here we go!

-----

"A changeling?" Blinky hisses, dragging his hands across his many aching eyes. It's surprising that his heavy-footed pacing hasn't worn a hole in the carpet yet.

Walter, the changeling in question, sits stiffly on the couch with his arms folded. He won't bother pretending it doesn't sting a little.

"A changeling? The Trollhunter, the troll tasked with protecting Trollmarket and fighting the Gumm-Gumms, the troll that is supposed to defend the innocent, a-"

"-so you've said," Walter tersely interrupts. "If it's that unthinkable, perhaps you should find someone else for the responsibility." He reaches inside his pocket and pulls the amulet out. It pulses as if in greeting.

Blinky sighs long and hard. He glances sideways at Walter and the amulet with a heavy mixture of fear, exasperation, and longing. "If I could do it, it would be done! But you know as well as I that the amulet cannot be so easily cast aside once it has chosen its bearer."

"I do?" Murmurs Walter.

AAARRRGGHH!!!, from the doorway, warily glances between the two.

As Blinky continues ranting, Walter turns to his second guest and smiles tiredly. "Would you like some of Barbara's cooking? It isn't particularly palatable for humans, but I hear your tastes are a little different."

Blinky gets nothing from that night but an ominous fear for the future and a confirmation of a meeting time the following night, sure to be filled with more disbelief and horror. AAARRRGGHH!!!, however, gets a full stomach and a new friend.

"So what did your people think when you told them a changeling was the new Trollhunter?" Walter asks as soon as Blinky steps through the door.

Blinky tenses, back arching, looking almost like a distressed cat before contorting himself back into something resembling relaxed, cheerful even. It's completely fake, but it's clear that Blinky is trying his best to meet Walter halfway. "I did not tell them, actually." There is a hint of well-hidden smugness that turns sour in the next breath. "What about you? Have you revealed to any of your compatrio-"

"Of course not," Walter interrupts. They would kill him. Kill him and take the amulet, because changelings are not to be trusted, changelings should not be put in charge of power. It is in their nature to misuse it.

(He swears to himself he will not do that. There is a picture of his family in his breast pocket, close to his heart, and he promises himself he will bear this burden with dignity and respect.)

AAARRRGGHH!!! sidles up to him and grins, wide and friendly and open, despite Blinky's hissed warnings. "Hi, Walter!" He says, deep voice booming.

"Hello, AAARRRGGHH!!!," Walter replies, smiling despite himself. "How are you?"

They chat amiably while Blinky digs around in his bag. "Here," he says shortly, handing over three thick tomes which Walter takes with only a small oooomph. "Necessary knowledge for any Trollhunter. A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore, parts one, two, and three of forty-seven. I don't know how much changelings can actually read, but..."

"I can most certainly read!" Walter retorts, and once he realizes what he's holding, his mouth goes dry. He clutches them to his chest tightly and tries not to let a hungry look enter his eyes.

Blinky frowns as he watches Walter's knuckles tighten on the books. "Regardless, there is no use in passing on this knowledge to the Gumm-Gumms. Most of it is from a time long past."

Walter swallows and nods. "Are we done?"

"Hello Blinky, Hello AAARRRGGHH!!!. Do you happen to have the next books?" Walter asks as soon as Blinky slips through the doorway. They are meeting in the school this night so Jim and Toby can watch movies.

Blinky blinks all six of his eyes. "It has been less than a day! Have you made it through the first three volumes already?"

Walter's grin is small and guarded. "I even bookmarked a few important sections. I wanted to ask you about some inconsistencies I've noticed-"

And for once it looks like they have something to talk about. AAARRRGGHH!!! naps quietly in the corner while Blinky takes a deep breath and starts lecturing, and he's halfway through a speech on why a historical figure made some extremely costly mistakes, when his gaze suddenly sharpens on the pen in Walter's hand, scribbling onto an open notebook. "Are you taking notes?"

Walter looks up as if he's been broken out of some sort of trance. "...yes?"

Blinky worries his suspenders between his fingers. "The pursuit of knowledge is admirable, but I must ask, what is it about this subject that has you so interested?"

"Because Trungar certainly d-"

"Troll lore, Walter. What interests you so much about troll lore. If it is an attempt to foster a connection with me in hopes that I will be able to ignore how... wrong this all is..."

Walter feels anger and frustration fire-hot in his chest. "Not everything is about you."

"No, but it is about you, and-"

They are bickering like schoolchildren but Walter can't be bothered to care. He's despised and patronized by the Gumm-Gumms, disliked by his own kind, and looked down on by the trolls and he is tired. And he raises his voice in return, clamoring to be heard, when suddenly a large palm falls between them, smacking the desk with a resounding clatter of stone on wood.

Both he and Blinky jump backwards in alarm. "No fighting," the sleepy AAARRRGGHH!!! demands, and then he rolls over and apparently goes back to his nap.

Walter breathes in a shallow breath and looks guiltily at Blinky, whose lips are pressed together in a thin line.

"It's my lore too," Walter says, hating how it makes him sound like a lost little child. "I- I'm not a troll. But at some point, I was. I had a family. I had a past. Bedehilde writes of songs, and traditions, and folktales, and a shared history, and they were once mine. The trolls that you talk about could be my ancestors and I can never know."

He watches under furrowed brows as Blinky pales.

And now that he's completely humiliated himself, he slides back into his chair and closes the notebook, preparing to slip it into his briefcase, because surely no one would care to teach a changeling Trollhunter so ridiculously desperate, and he begins to reconsider ever using the amulet at all. But a firm hand, so large on his skinny wrist, stops him before he can move.

"How old are you? Did you have a name? What shape were you?" Blinky asks softly.

Walter stares at the hand. "I don't remember. The first thing I remember is-" pain. Poison seeping into his veins, skin turning a gastly green, growing razor-sharp featherknives out of his skin that hurthurthurt. Yelling and chanting and brainwashing. He can't quite vocalize it but his face seems to do enough, because Blinky lets go.

The previous suspicion is suddenly gone, and in its place is a sort of sympathy that Walter hates almost as much.

"...Right! Trungar was certainly in a spot, and he turned to his advisor, who as you remember is---"

Blinky piles on book after book, and when Walter asks him for the referenced literatures he gets them. They are slowly drawing a picture in his head, a staticky, distant image of a people long past, journeys long concluded. He hums the songs of those people as he dries dishes, kisses Barbara, walks across the parking lot on his way to school. He reads the stories of those people, dreams about them sometimes.

A people that he can't quite feel are his, has no rightful claim to anymore, but he wants to with an illogical, melancholy yearning.

Once Blinky seems to have gotten over his initial hesitations, he starts teaching Walter other aspects of being a Trollhunter. He brings a rather ridiculous construction onto one of the sports fields and chases Walter around with it, shooting things at him with a suspiciously manic glee while Walter, fully armored, slowly learns how to leap and dodge.

He makes Walter practice repeating the mantras and rules of being a Trollhunter until Walter can recite them in his sleep.

It's not a complete education, by far, but every time Walter asks about the missing pieces he is pushed aside.

"Have you even told them their new Trollhunter is a changeling?" He asks one day, exasperated, half-asleep because he spent all of last night dodging magic arrows and grading midterms.

"No, and you should be thankful we haven't," Blinky frowns, and there is that hint of pity again that Walter hatehatehates. "If Vendel knew, I have no doubt he'd have you killed so the position would move to a troll."

If Walter was less tired, he would be much less whiny. "It just feels unfair," he murmurs. "I didn't choose to be made like this. I need to practice at the Forge. I want to see your library. I want to see Trollmarket."

There is nothing but silence, but it feels thick and smothering.

Walter closes his eyes. "I've been called to a meeting. Two days from now. Bular seems eager for something. I believe it has to do with Killahead Bridge. Nomura plays a large part, I am sure, because she works at the museum where they are planning on constructing it."

He opens his eyes when he hears a choking noise. Blinky seems to be having some sort of breakdown.

"You are in contact with Bular?"

Walter can't do anything but laugh.

It takes several minutes for Blinky to collect himself enough to start listening, but everything he hears seems to threaten to send him back into hysterics. There is a reason Walter avoided talking about this in the first place.

Yes, Walter is very high on the food chain of Gunmar's command. Yes, he goes to regular meetings, and is in on their plans. He isn't just some sort of changeling minion, he's a changeling minion with some form of status that he's fought long and hard for. And now painfully regrets.

Blinky paces. And paces. And paces. And then shoves a half-empty notebook into Walter's hands.

"Write," he demands. "Everything you can think of. Personnel, locations, tools, strategies, weaknesses, movements, shoe sizes!"

Walter very deliberately starts out with shoe sizes.

Blinky paces again. Then he stops, turns, and shares a wicked grin. "You know, this is something that a troll Trollhunter couldn't do."

The thought makes something warmbrightproud kindle in Walter's chest.

They make plans, junk those plans, make new ones. Cover an entire wall of Walter's hidden office in string, thumbtacks, and hastily scribbled ideas and profiles. Walter feels more and more like a spy every day.

But it's strangely exciting.

And even though he feels more torn than ever between worlds, between Gumm-Gumms and humans and trolls, now, too, how ridiculously complex...

...he isn't Atlas, shouldering his burden alone. AAARRRGGHH!!! shares hugs without reserve, and glances at him with a deeply knowing look sometimes, and Blinky no longer hesitates to reach over and ruffle his hair or poke him in the forehead if he drifts off. He has friends, real friends, who know the whole of him and aren't cringing in disgust (anymore).

(He takes a secret photo one day, and slips his phone into his pocket before either of the trolls can notice. He prints out a small copy and keeps it in his breast pocket next to the rest of his family.

He has a few more people he's determined to protect, which makes his mission simultaneously more difficult and a whole lot easier.)

#fika fic #trollhunters #trollhunters fic #fanfiction #stricklake #only a quick mention but it's kinda the basis for this whole AU so #trollhunter strickler au

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quietpagan · 8 years ago

Text

Trollhunters: What Falls and What Grows 7

"Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them."

- A. A. Milne, Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh

* Language, blood and violence warning *

For the residents of Trollmarket, the excitement and gossip of a new Trollhunter faded a bit in that first week, but for Blinky the challenge of a new trainee was still fresh and new every day.

He was rather enjoying doing the complete training, as he had with Unkar. Blinky hadn’t begun training Trollhunters in anything other than lore until the previous trainer had been eaten by a goblin horde. His aptitude for the job was negligible; poor Unkar had proven that. But he’d studied up and trained Kanjigar well…although it certainly had helped that Kanjigar had already been a formidable warrior prior to being chosen as Hunter.

Alexandra was entertaining to train. She pushed herself past the previous day’s limits every session she had, but when she was finished, she was finished, and nothing short of AAARRRGGHH physically lifting her off the floor and chasing her around the arena could get her started again.

The rules of engagement were followed to the letter; even Kanjigar had struggled with rule three, which seemed to be Alexandra’s favorite. She certainly used it on Draal a lot.

Draal, really, was another matter. His hatred of Alexandra had waned to a mere dislike, and Blinky knew that Draal appreciated the way that Alexandra would charge at him, screaming like a banshee and hacking at everything she could reach, whenever he deliberately pushed her too far. It seemed to provide a much-needed outlet for both of them, because they often got something to eat afterward and were reasonably amicable for the rest of the day.

Alexandra’s studies were going even better than the training. She was a diligent and eager student, always asking questions and taking down notes, and Blinky knew that she supplemented his lectures with the reading materials she was hoarding in her chambers.

Blinky’s studies, however, had hit a dead end. And by dead end, he meant that he had not found a single shred of evidence for Alexandra’s existence.

Which should have been impossible, or at least extremely improbable. Trolls took a lot of time and effort to record names and families, given their low numbers and long lives. Now it could have happened that her personal record was lost in the crossing and migration; Alexandra probably wasn’t old enough to have been born before the end of the war, and when the majority of trolls moved from Europe and crossed the American continent many things were lost, including documents and records. But that would not explain the absence of any record of Asphodelus, Alexandra’s…Blinky actually wasn’t sure if that was her mother or father. Blinky held one of many, many copies of records of trolls born before, during, and after the migration – it was exceptionally rare that any troll, even from a reclusive or unpopular line, neglected to have their name or the name of a new relative recorded. He, Vendel, and several other scholars around the world regularly received missives announcing the birth of a whelp.

There were three explanations for Asphodelus’s and Alexandra’s lack of records. The first was that Asphodelus was one of those rare and few who never had their names taken in the records, and they had neglected to give Alexandra’s as well. The second was that the records had – for whatever reason – been destroyed, a feat only possible through magic.

The third was that Alexandra had lied.

Maybe she didn’t know her family, Blinky thought. Maybe she had dishonored ancestors. Maybe she was in hiding. Maybe she was a criminal. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Blinky naturally told AAARRRGGHH about his findings, but neither of them rushed to inform Vendel. As soft-hearted as he was underneath the sarcasm and disappointment, he was also extremely pragmatic. A Trollhunter who lied about something so simple, so seemingly unimportant, was not a Trollhunter that they could trust.

Alexandra was reminded in the next week of exactly how much she loved the barter system. Prices depended on what someone needed or how much they wanted what she offered, and it varied from person to person. Her cat had crapped in the room again and she bought breakfast and lunch with its leavings, as well as a hairball it spit up. That actually got her a decent little salt lamp, in addition to a plate of seared mushrooms. The residents of Trollmarket were surprisingly accommodating, and she supposed that they were very used to having foreign trolls around, as well as Trollhunters new to the job. She had not been called to do anything yet, as Blinky had told her she would, but she wanted to be ready. ‘Trollhunter’ wasn’t just a thorn in Bular’s side, but a leader and servant to the people under his or her wing. It was more responsibility than Alexandra had ever been charged with to bear, and although she had decided to truly give it her all (though she had little choice) she tried not to think about it.

Blinky may have had pity on her on the second day, but by the third she was back in the Forge, working on her footwork and building up her strength and endurance. If she was honest with herself she would have admitted that the exercise felt good, but it also left her so sore that she dreaded getting up to go train. It didn’t help that he now made the floor of the arena move.

Sparring with Draal especially killed her. He and Blinky both seemed to take absolute amusement from making her suffer, but Draal took it the extra mile. If she failed to block a hit, she had to practice the move until she got it, and then he’d still spring around and try the same hit at random times throughout the training session.

Day four had been especially brutal, because Blinky only let her use one set of arms – the lower ones. He’d seen her struggles with using them and had her practice her sword forms to perfection, changing which hand the sword was held in each time. Alexandra’s lower arms were weak and extremely out of practice, and she was still sore three days later.

In fact she’d never been more emotionally and physically exhausted in her life. Not only was she re-learning how to control a body she hadn’t used in decades, pushing it through spars and memorizing forms, she was also studying every book she could glue her eyes to and re-reading her notes from Blinky’s daily lectures.

The sheer amount of things she was completely ignorant about was staggering, and she knew that Blinky had noticed. He had begun to ask her about her family, her childhood home, how and where she had lived, where she had learned to fence, even where she’d gotten her clothes. Dodging his queries and making up half-truths and often times straight-up lies was exhausting. She was half-ready to just shout I’m a Changeling, motherfucker! just to stop him from questioning her all the time. And he was sneaky about it, too. He didn’t just outright ask her things, but made quiet little I suppose that blah blah blah comments or made delicate little prompts whenever she spoke, or else deliberately false assumptions so that she would instinctively correct them, and thus give him more information. She’d never heard or used to much double-speak and coded language in her life.

And it got dangerous, too. He’d noticed that she knew more about the Darklands than anything else. She wasn’t sure how she’d let that slip, but she needed to be more careful. She’d been so enthralled, so unusually accepted in Trollmarket that she’d gotten careless somewhere, and careless – for her kind – was deadly.

Alexandra felt a hard little skull nudge against her elbow and absently rubbed it with another hand. She had…acquired a few more cats than she had initially intended. So far the number had grown to four, and she really needed to get proper cat supplies. She hadn’t had a pet for several decades, and whenever an escapee ran across her path she just kind of…well, stole it, more or less. She made up for it by paying for things with their leavings instead of using the good ol’ I’m the Trollhunter, gimme stuff system that several stalls seemed to expect from her and she was enjoying the company, but it was getting crowded. And smelly. She really needed a proper litterbox.

Which reminded her of her other problem: Kanjigar’s body. Blinky, AAARRRGGHH, Draal, and even Vendel had all begun to pressure her about going up and fetching it. She’d procrastinated long past the point of tolerance – it had been a week already. Every time she glanced at the empty plinth in the Forge she got a little stab of annoyed guilt.

Which was exactly why she was huddled in her nest, with a cat on each arm, reading about the trolls who fought in the Gallic wars and avoiding the trip she’d planned.

She’d received multiple offers to help with the retrieval, but every one had been refused; she couldn’t let them see her apartment.

The little watch she’d bought told her that it was almost sunset, and she closed her book with a sigh. Getting Kanjigar out during the daytime would have been more convenient for her, but too many people would see her, and even if she covered him with a sheet there would be too many questions. Alexandra also doubted that she could pick him up in her human form; strong as it was, trolls weighed a lot, especially once dead. This was not going to be fun.

She snuck out of the market just as the sun was beginning to set, and Changed in the shadows of the bridge. The light, the sounds, the smells of the human world hit her like a brick, and she wobbled for a few steps before she got used to only having two hands and more even proportions again. This was why she preferred to stay in one shape; her human and troll forms were too different. She almost felt blinded with only two eyes to see from.

She went to the town’s tiny supermarket first and bought a supply of cat litter and food. She’d run low very quickly, but it would give her time to either find some sand or get rid of the cats.

Being Upstairs was…odd. It was like returning to your hometown after an extended trip; both new and familiar. She felt distinctly more at ease than she was in Trollmarket, and by the time she got to her apartment it was like she never gone.

A neighbor greeted her, but otherwise she was unbothered. She had the habit of taking pains not to make friends where she lived; she’d found out the hard way how difficult it was to disappear for a period of time when someone expected to chat with her in the apartment hallway every day. It raised too much suspicion when someone was familiar with her daily routines.

Kanjigar still stood in the living room, a menacing stone statue staring a ruffled yellow curtain.

Alexandra quickly shut the door, taking a look around the apartment to make sure nothing was amiss; things were exactly the same as she had left them, although a bit dusty. Her senses were a bit heightened after so soon a Change, and she could smell the neglect – the things gone bad in the fridge, the clothes that hadn’t been washed, the hot-dust scent from the closed curtains. She’d forgotten to turn off her air conditioning, and it rattled on. She knew in that moment that she would pack her things away, terminate her lease, and give her notice at the bookshop. This was the world she was used to, but not the one she could stay in now. Trollhunter, unfortunately, was rather all-encompassing.

There was still glass and a stained blanket on the floor by Kanjigar’s feet, from where he’d broken the window.

Prove yourself, he had said. You are more than what you were made to be.

Prove yourself.

Alexandra shook the memory out of her head and puttered around the apartment, making calls and packing things up, trying to do as much as she could until it was the early hours of morning. As soon as it hit two-thirty, she closed her computer, packed her cat supplies into a bag, and Changed, stepping carefully around the glass to tie a sheet over Kanjigar. She had to summon the armor to pick him up and drag him over to the front door, which was just barely wide enough.

It took a little concentration, but she managed a little trick – to Change while in the armor. The armor shrank with her, forming seamlessly on her human body, and she draped herself in a long winter coat. Odd, for the time of the year, but she’d need the power-up and didn’t want to be caught either in glowing armor or in troll form if any of her neighbors came to investigate why she was dragging an enormous sheet-covered statue out of the building at three in the morning.

The elevator – because there was no way in hell she was dragging Kanjigar’s fat ass down the damn stairs – accommodated only one of them, so Alex had to send Kanjigar down by himself, while she ran down the stairs and hoped to hell that no one wanted to use the elevator.

Getting him through the front door was a trip, literally, because of the stairs. She almost smashed him – his left elbow actually caught the doorframe and chipped off, and Alexandra nearly dropped the rest of him in surprise and dismay. She frightened a young man passing by with her cursing, and by the time she got to the edge of the park she was ready to either cry or laugh maniacally, and just dump him in the grass. She Changed once more in the shadows of the trees and dragged him through the park.

She had to think for a bit on how, exactly, to get Kanjigar down the side of the canal without breaking him, and eventually she gave up, tucked him behind a tree, and went down to Trollmarket to get some help.

Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were waiting at the base of the crystal staircase, as she had asked them to, but she wasn’t surprised to see Draal there as well. He looked her up and down, as if seeing her in the armor still horrified him, and gestured around them.

“Where is my father?” “I don’t want him to break,” said Alexandra, shooting foremost for whatever would get Draal to be sympathetic. “Will you give me a hand?”

Draal snorted but brushed by her.

“You should have a few to spare,” he said. Alexandra rolled her eyes and came up the stairs behind him, hearing Blinky and AAARRRGGHH following.

“Excuse me if I’m not composed solely of muscle and bad attitude,” she muttered, just loud enough for Draal to hear.

He kept quiet, unusual for him, but she knew that most of his piss and vitriol was borne from mourning. As rude and brutish as he was, he had just lost his father less than a week ago, and the fact that he not only hadn’t tried to kill but was actively training his father’s replacement was…reasonably admirable.

They emerged from the entrance to see the morning beginning to lighten; the tops of trees were distinguishable from the sky, and although it would be at least another half hour until the sun broke it was still much later than Alex would have liked. She was immune to the effects of daylight, but the others were not and the exact last thing she needed was another cocksucking statue to drag down to Trollmarket.

“He’s up here. Let’s hurry.” Alexandra pushed past Draal and clamored up the side of the canal, keeping one eye on to the east and the others watching for humans or Bular, since he was familiar with the area.

The others had to wait until a paperboy passed over the bridge, but once Alexandra waved them clear they joined her in the park. AAARRRGGHH started to lift the sheet but Alex shooed his hands away, the pale grey sky worrying her.

“We’ll do that later,” she whispered. “Just get him down.”

Draal and AAARRRGGHH had to tag-team it to get Kanjigar down the side of the canal without any damage, and they got him through the entrance without trouble.

Alexandra went last, and just as the portal closed she saw, out of the corner of two eyes, the spindly leg of a goblin disappear behind the beam of the bridge above.

There was an uproar down below when Alex managed to get her heartrate back under control and descend the stairs. She knew she’d have to see goblins and Changelings and Bular again, but she really hadn’t expected it, as if it could just be a slightly possibility if she didn’t think about it enough. She had not been ready.

Alexandra was still dazed when she walked to the bottom of the stairs, and thus Blinky’s warning look didn’t register with her. Only her newly-built reflexes saved her from getting her face caved in.

AAARRRGGHH caught her and pushed her back to her feet; she had tripped over the sheet she’d used to cover Kanjigar. Draal was standing in front of the dead troll, looking more murderous than he had when she’d first seen him.

“What kind of insult is this?!”

He roared in her face and gestured violently to his father. Alex looked over his shoulder; Kanjigar was unchanged. She was afraid some kid had drawn a mustache on him or something.

“What insult,” she asked. Draal shoved his face two inches in front of her own, breathing so hard that his nose ring rattled.

“You dare to bring me my father in this condition, in this state, and expect no retribution? I will not see Kanjigar the Courageous dishonored in this way!” “He’s not wearing the armor,” said Blinky behind her, and Alex finally understood. Why hadn’t she seen this before?

Each and every Trollhunter interred in the Hero’s Forge was shown in his or her armor. Every Trollhunter had died in that armor.

Except Kanjigar.

“Master Alexandra, perhaps now would be a good time to explain what, exactly, happened.”

Blinky sounded unusually stern, and with a glance she saw suspicion and accusation in his and AAARRRGGHH’s faces.

The trolls surrounding them looked as grim and distrustful as they did, and over the tops of their heads Alexandra could see Vendel’s starry eyes glaring.

“I challenge you,” said Draal then, his voice almost shaking with anger, the words difficult to hear through clenched teeth. Alexandra whirled around to face him in surprise.

“You will pay for my father’s insult with blood.”

“I can explain this,” she hissed at him. She was wholly shaken; in the week since they’d known each other she’d never have considered him a friend, but to have him challenge her to a duel? Where one or both of them would die? It was beyond dismaying. She thought she’d been doing better than this.

“Draal, I can explain – “ “I don’t care,” he said. It was all she could do to not back away when he fully stepped into her space, shoulders hunched, jaw tense, fists clenched and shaking. Right there, it was just the two of them, breathing in each other’s fear and anger.

Around them, several people were cheering him and goading him on, demanding him to fight her, to make her pay, to show her what a true Trollhunter should be, and when Alexandra looked in his eyes she saw the weight of all those expectations glimmering there. He was angry, yes, but not enough to be willing to possibly die in a duel.

Alexandra minutely shook her head. Draal’s eyes widened.

“I’m not fighting you for this,” she whispered. Draal exhaled, but didn’t back down.

“I’m not fighting,” she said, louder this time.

“No backing out of challenge,” said AAARRRGGHH, quietly, solemnly. Several of the trolls in the crowd agreed with him, yelling for them to get a move on.

I can’t do this.

I have to do this.

A Changeling’s life was one of difficult decisions, of absences and losses and unmet wants. She’d left her first family in shame; her second in mourning; friends and lovers with empty rooms and empty beds. She’d killed people who had suspected her; a man who thought she was a witch; a woman who had seen her in the subway tunnels; a fellow Changeling who fought her in the Darklands, and another who kept digging into her disappearance.

She could live with herself if – when – she killed Draal.

Alexandra refused to second-guess herself and think further on it. She summoned the armor. The people around them screamed for blood, and Draal’s eyes tightened with disappointment and determination.

The crowd followed them to the Hero’s Forge. Blinky and AAARRRGGHH separated her from the throng and Vendel pulled Draal to the other side of the arena, looking for all the world like a disappointed grandparent. People filled the balconies, and from the massive doorway Blinky situated her just inside of, most of them looked like they were rooting for Draal.

Blinky hesitated, then put a hand on her shoulder.

“Remember the three rules,” he said quietly. “I know we have not trained as much as…as I would have liked, but you are creative, and you know Draal’s habits, as he knows yours. Draal will not be afraid of you, and that will be his failing. Let his hubris bring him to his defeat.”

Alex thought back to the resignation and obligation in Draal’s violent yellow eyes, and knew that it wasn’t truly hubris that made him challenge her. But she nodded, giving Blinky a reassuring smile.

The crowd cheered and boo’d her when she stepped through the doorway.

“The Trollhunter has been challenged by the son of her predecessor,” said Vendel to the masses, “In defense of his father Kanjigar’s honor. You all will bear witness to the battle, which will be one for the ages!” Vendel muttered something after that, but Alexandra couldn’t hear it.

“Enter Alexandra, daughter of Asphodelus, Trollhunter.”

The cage-like door slammed down behind her, almost making her jump.

“And now, Alexandra’s combatant, Draal, son of Kanjigar, son of Tarigar. Draal the ‘Destroyer’.”

Draal came tearing out of his doorway, curled into a crystal-spike-covered ball and rolling across the floor almost faster than Alex’s eyes could follow. He rocketed up the wall and fell, landing in the center of the arena just a few yards from Alexandra.

“Prepare for battle,” said Vendel. Draal cracked his fists on the stone floor, roaring at Alex and hunching his shoulders. She summoned the sword and twirled it in her hand, baring her not-inconsiderable teeth and snarling. She knew he was trying to intimidate her, like he had in their first meeting, but also she knew the measure of him. He was a kid under too much pressure and little guidance, unfortunately a fantastic warrior, but he wanted to fight as much as she did. He wanted to live and he didn’t like her, but his heart wasn’t into killing her, and that was her advantage. She was a damned Changeling; their methods differed, their loyalty wavered, and their power was nonexistent, but they survived.

The arena rumbled, and then rose; Alexandra and Draal, on the centerpiece, were carried to the level of the balconies, while the rest of the floor settled on various levels below.

Vendel raised his arms, and the crowd hushed for a single second.

“Begin.”

Alexandra struck first. She rolled to the side, swinging her sword at the back of Draal’s knees. He jumped away with a yelp, obviously not having expected her to make the first move.

I’m the fucking Trollhunter, for Christ’s sake, she thought darkly. I’m not taking this shit from you!

They charged each other at the same time, and he blocked her sword with the wraps on his wrist. She knew he wasn’t going to use any of the forms or strikes he’d trained her in, and she didn’t expect him to. He wasn’t going to pull his punches, and neither was she.

This wasn’t the time to fight fair. If she could get enough limbs at least injured with Daylight she might have a chance.

While she was trying to cut through his wraps, he lowered his head and caught her on the chin with his horns, sending her reeling back before she could turn his wrist to stone.

Is the Trollhunter allowed to be underhanded?

Draal spat on the floor and rolled his shoulders, eagerly waving at the small crowd that had cheered his hit.

Y’know…I don’t give a fuck.

Draal began to turn around as Alexandra rose, and then he very softly sank to the ground, Alexandra’s foot retracting from between his legs. She ignored the booing from the crowd in favor of hitting him in the head with both right fists before he could have time to do more than groan. The punches downed him, but he rolled, retreating to the other side of the centerpiece.

“That’s a coward’s move,” he shouted, standing rather stiffly. Alexandra rolled her shoulders and summoned the sword again.

“And yet it worked. Come at me.”

Draal came after her, faster than she was prepared for. He hit her with a glance but it still threw her several feet, and she was reminded that the floor wasn’t exactly level anymore. Her second left hand caught her before she could fall and she flipped, landing in a graceless roll on the piece of arena floor below, the sword sliding away from her.

There was a crack, and the pain hit after a second of shock. The elbow she’d hurt in their first spar, almost healed in the past week, took too much pressure on the sprain and failed. Her primary arm was useless.

Too soon. It was only a minute into the fight, it was too soon, and she was already injured.

And Draal had noticed.

She looked up to see him peering over the edge of the level above; her level moved suddenly, and began to rise as his fell. He jumped over when they crossed paths and grabbed her leg, hurling her upwards, but her sword materialized in her other right hand and she slashed at his arms and face, forcing him to let go; she rose a few more feet, and then began to fall. Draal was still bothered by his left eye turning to stone; Alex’s sword angled downward, and he only managed to avoid being run through by a lucky hit. She was swatted out of the air and over the side of the level again, but she was back up when the floor flattened again. Alex scrambled backward onto the centerpiece just in time to see the pieces surrounding it turning onto their sides.

Draal jumped and landed far below.

Fuck that.

Alexandra waited until the centerpiece went back down before striking again, catching her breath in the brief reprieve. She was losing because she was fighting like a troll. Taking hits, striking fast and plain – just like Blinky and Draal taught her. But this wasn’t a brawl or a spar – she would die if she didn’t win this fight.

Draal smirked at her when she reached the floor, but when he swung at her she dodged, moving her head just enough to the side that his blow missed. She twisted and struck with her left hands, leaving claw marks on his cheek and neck before dancing out of the way again.

“You can do better than that,” she hissed. Draal snarled and charged, as she knew he would, and she slid neatly between his legs and hacked off the edges of several of the crystals on his back. He snarled in rage and swiped at her again, but she stayed out his range, throwing the cut tips of the crystals at his face.

Draal had to block his view of her to shield his face, but he quickly got tired of it and rolled again. Alexandra wasn’t fast enough to get out of his way and he grabbed her, kicking her in the nose and getting a deadly hold on her torso and squeezing. The armor crackled with blue, trying to shield her; she twisted as far as she could and managed to hook a finger in his nose-ring.

Blood sprayed her arm and face as she ripped it out; Draal yelled and smashed a hand against her helmet, the noise and pressure making her head ring and her vision blur – and then her vision blacked out completely, when she wriggled out of his grip but was tackled to the floor.

Alex managed to get an arm around his throat before several hundred pounds of hyper-masculine troll crushed her ribcage; she couldn’t breathe. Draal dug the edges of his crystals into her leg and she had to grit her teeth to avoid crying out, but she did yell and bite him when he smashed his elbow into the side of her jaw. She held tighter, tasting blood in her mouth from where she’d bitten her tongue, but she didn’t let go of his head until it was either that or have him break her leg.

Draal rolled out of her grip and they stood slowly, circling each other steadily. They each took stock of their individual injuries even as their eyes stayed focused on the eyes of the other. Draal had a slowly-healing patch of stone staining his left eye as well as several small patches on the undersides of his arms and one on his side. One of his teeth had been knocked loose, and dribbles of blood splattered on the arena floor from his mouth and the torn skin on his cheek, neck, and nose, and the place she’d bitten him on the elbow.

Alex’s primary arm was dead weight, the elbow dislocated. Her mouth was aching and the blood made her nauseas, and her chest pained when she took anything but a shallow breath. Two of the eyes on the left side of her face were swollen shut, and her head was aching and ringing. Her right leg hurt when she put pressure on it; her mobility was now severely limited. The sword, if she kept using it in one of her less-experienced hands, was more of a danger to herself than to Draal, despite all of the drills he’d made her run for the exact occasion where her primary arm would be rendered incapable.

She had three arms and one leg, in a fight against an opponent larger, stronger, and faster than she.

Rule Number One, she thought wryly. She was fucking terrified.

Draal wiped the blood away from his nose and growled at her. The sound jarred at her ringing ears but she responded in kind, and crouched in a defensive position.

When he struck next, she evaded, and kept evading, only darting in his range to land a fast strike and then dodging out of the way when he tried to hit her again. Alex hoped to tire him out; she kept moving back behind his elbow, just inside his blind stop, which forced him to turn around quickly before she could slice at the back of his arms or his neck.

The plan stopped working when he grabbed her sword. Just…grabbed her sword.

The cut it made on his hand was enough to turn the entire thing up to the wrist to stone, but once Draal got a grip he did not – could not – let go, and the sword was wrenched from Alexandra’s hands; it vanished in a spark of blue.

Alex was so shocked that she forgot to duck.

The uppercut sent her to the floor, the armor having absorbed only enough to avoid her neck being broken from the sheer force of the hit. Alex crumbled on the ground, smacked her helmet, and blacked out.

The birdsong was loud in her ears; it was too early for the dogwood outside of her window to be blooming, but the birds perched in it year-round. She snuggled deeper into her quilt, curling her knees up around her chest to get a little bit warmer.

Hendry, her father, was gently calling to her.

“Wake up,” he said; his voice was smiling, as it often did. “Thou art late in rising, Alexandra.”

She hated when he spoke in English. Most of their community was from England and it was the primary language used, but she preferred the Welsh that Hendry and Gwladys, her mother, used at home.

“Bore da,” she murmured, which made him chuckle; the entire household knew her dislike of learning English.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Mae'n rhy oer i fod yn dda.”

“It may be cold,” he replied, “But it is still a good day, and thou must rise.”

She pulled the quilt over her head. Rising meant going outside, for milk and eggs. Breakfast wasn’t worth the cold, and she was sooo tired. Every inch of her body ached. “Alexandra,” Hendry said again, and this confused her. Her father had never known her as Alexandra. She was Verity, to him. Wasn’t she? “Alexandra. Thou must rise. Get up.”

Why did she have to get up when it hurt so much? There was a roaring in her ears, as if a crowd was outside the window. Was something happening? Had a house caught fire, like the neighbors’ did last winter? Why were people yelling so much? It hurt her head. Suddenly she wasn’t cold – she was warm. Warmer than spring had ever felt in her house.

“Alexandra, get up. You must get up!” Her right arm hurt too much to move, and the ringing in her ears, only now noticeable, was like a church bell. She was beginning to panic, but she still couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Get up, Alexandra,” Hendry yelled. “You must get up!” “Get up!” “Alexandra!”

Alex groaned.

“Dydw i ddim eisiau mynd i fyny,” she murmured. The blood and pain in her mouth made her slur; she hoped her father would understand, and stop shouting. A strange thundering sound, like the footsteps of God, were coming closer and closer to her.

“Alexandra, please, get! Up!”

She tried to open her eyes, but some wouldn’t listen. Her leg and arm were on fire.

Blinky’s yell shot an arrow of pain straight between her brows.

“ALEXANDRA!”

Alex’s eyes snapped open, and she flipped backward just in time to avoid a massive crystal-encrusted shoulder landing where her head had been. She summoned the sword automatically and sliced as Draal rolled, giving him a streak of stone across his shoulder and bicep and rendering the arm useless. Her momentum twisted her around and she used the sword and two of her arms to brace against the ground when she kicked Draal in the side as he fell. He did not get up.

The crowd above gasped and cheered, out of horror and the thirst for battle; Alex’s ears turned the sound to white noise. She had to use the sword to stand and walk.

Draal was utterly defeated. There was a cut on his throat and chin that bled sluggishly, and he couldn’t lift his arms to block when she positioned her sword between his eyes.

They stayed locked for several moments, both immobilized in their own ways.

“The match is to the death, Trollhunter,” Draal snarled quietly, but his voice was more resigned than defiant. It was the tone that made her pause.

He was resigned to being killed by her.

Something about her black-out caught at her, and a fleeting memory ran through her mind:

“All life is of worth, Verity,” said her mother, sharing with her a pot of tea while they waited for the bread to rise. She had gotten angry at one the neighbors’ boys, who had teased her when she shrieked at and kicked away a snake. She’d punched the tall one right in the nose, causing her mother to be drawn out of a Meeting to deal with her.

“Even the mean, the cruel, and the poorest of men. All break the divine bread of life, of its hopes and sorrows and loves…”

Alex couldn’t remember past that. She’d said something that made Gwladys grimace, but she didn’t hit the others again. A few years later she heard about the witch-hunts happening in Bamburg, and became the best-behaved child in the village, making friends and allies with absolutely everyone, too terrified to act out because what if.

She’d always felt better and worse after her mother’s sermons, both cleansed and guilty, because she remembered the shriek when she’d broken another Changeling child’s arm, not two years before she’d been assigned. She pushed another off a towering geode and watched her break, heard the sudden shrill whistle from the goblin who watched the fights. She’d felt favored and powerful, then – capable of surviving. Always surviving.

The crowd above them was screaming, screaming for her to so something.

She’d known from the beginning that he didn’t want to die, not for this fight. She could have lived with killing him.

But things were different now; she wasn’t just surviving. Even if people found out, she was still the Trollhunter, and would be until her death. That changed things.

Alexandra tapped her sword against Draal’s neck, and slowly bent down. She had to brace two arms against his shoulder to avoid falling over, but he was still at her mercy, and his defeated eyes knew it.

“…You are worth more than this death today,” she whispered to him. His eyes fell to her sword, and she shook her head minutely.

“The fight is to the death,” he whispered back, more urgently this time. Alexandra knew the rules; troll society was one of the first thing’s she’d read up on. But it didn’t matter.

“Do you really think that this is the best you can do,” she said. “You have more of a destiny than this, Draal. You are more than the son of your father.”

He looked utterly shocked. Alexandra removed her sword from his throat, and stood. She moved smoothly, strong and steady, clenching her teeth from the pain but refusing to show any weakness to the screaming crowd – not now.

Draal hesitated when she put her hand in his, but his fingers finally tightened, and she lifted him back to his feet.

Alexandra ignored the crowd, and slowly walked Draal to the door, barely feeling the glares and thrown refuse as they left the arena.

Alex took them the long way around, in an attempt to avoid as many people as possible, but the only ones about were those who had not attended the fight, and so she and Draal were left alone as she took him to her quarters. She’d passed Blinky and AAARRRGGHH to fetch her bag, but at the look she gave them neither of them spoke, and she knew it would be a while before they came to check on her.

The cats had made a mess in the bathroom. Draal sank on the nest when she pushed him down, and followed the little creatures with his eyes.

“Did you steal all these cats,” he asked. Alexandra dragged herself into the patch of light that the Heartstone shone through her window and dismissed the armor, sliding down the wall in a pained heap.

“Yes.” “Can I eat o – “

“No.”

She’d closed her eyes, and so only heard Draal shift in the nest.

“What is the purpose of these cats – “ “Stop asking about my cats.”

Draal mercifully shut up, and began digging through her small stash of medicines, if her ears were correct. They were still ringing unpleasantly. At some point in time her hair had come loose, and the short ends prickled her ears uncomfortably.

Everything hurt. This wasn’t something she could just get over in a week. It was going to take a lot more than a few crystals and a salt lamp to fix the injuries she’d sustained in the match.

“Fuck you,” Alex muttered.

“You have destroyed my honor and effectively banished me from my home,” Draal replied. She smelled a package of herbs being opened, and hoped he wasn’t going to use all of it.

“Yeah, well, you kicked me in the face.”

Draal snorted. It sounded painful.

“And you touched my sword, you asshole. I hope you weren’t attached to that hand.” “As long as it stays attached to me, it should be…fine.”

I hope it crumbles, Alex thought maliciously. She let Draal take his pick of the medicine supply before mutely holding out her least-aching hand and letting him deposit the rest there. The salves were already mixed, and were applied to her cuts and bruises; the herbs chewed and swallowed; the crystal…

She really didn’t want to stand up, so she laboriously scooted on her ass over to the side of the nest. Draal was at least sitting up, and she gestured to her dislocated elbow.

He was delicate, actually, and when the joint was back in place Alex firmly attached her little crystal to it, hoping that at least she’d be able to move the arm by morning. She moved back to the shaft of Heartstone light, and waited for the medicines to take hold.

Draal, having done everything he could for his wounds, had nothing better to do than sit and stare at the wall. He looked so lost, so empty of everything, that Alex couldn’t help the flare of pity.

“I am sorry about Kanijigar,” she said softly. Draal wiped a crust of blood from his upper lip and looked at his feet.

“I watched his fight with Bular,” Alexandra said quietly. “He did well, but he was losing. Too injured, out too late. The amulet led him to me. He told me I was the next Trollhunter, handed me the amulet, and stepped into the sunlight.”

Draal wasn’t going to cry, she knew. It wasn’t his thing, and she didn’t think he was that close with his father anyway. Hero-worship was different than familial affection.

After a long time, Draal finally spoke.

“Why did he hand you the amulet,” he asked softly. “He would have died with it with him. It was his to the death, as it is now yours.” “He was brain-damaged,” said Alex absently, tonguing her sore teeth. Draals turned to her so fast that his neck cracked.

“I didn’t… not…that he was stupid. Half his head was sun-stained. He literally had taken damage to the brain, and that messes with your decision-making skills. I’m guessing that he also wasn’t much for mood swings?” Draal shook his head, the righteous anger on his face fading.

“Yeah. So. Sun-stained.”

Silence. Then:

“He’s missing an elbow.”

Alexandra dug through her bag and threw it at him.

“And part of his hand.” “I don’t know where that is,” Alexandra said. “He came to me damaged.”

Draal glared at her with daggers in his eyes, and she ignored him. She’d beaten his ass in a fight; he didn’t scare her anymore.

“You’re not staying here, you know.” Draal looked at her from beneath his heavy brows, like some kicked puppy with big yellow eyes, although one was crusted with blood. He had a surprisingly boyish face when he stopped snarling. Alexandra worried at a split in her lip.

“You can stay for a day or so, at least until you’re healed enough to not collapse and die in a sewer somewhere.”

Apparently that was permission enough for him to fall backward onto the nest. Alexandra exhaled heavily. She sat in the light of the Heartstone for a good while after that, feeling the faint pulse it made course through the aches and cracks in her body, before she painfully stood up and walked to the nest, elbowing Draal in the face until he made room for her. She lay wedged between his armpit and the wall, her damaged leg hanging off of the side, and used the back of his shoulder as a pillow.

“Don’t fucking touch my cats,” she murmured, just as she felt him falling asleep. He huffed in annoyance, but stayed quiet.

“If you roll over on me I’m turning you to stone.” “Good night, Trollhunter.”

Alexandra closed her eyes.

Asshole.

A/N: I fucking lied. AAARRRGGHH and Alex’s big clusterfuck will happen next chapter. I fucking swear. I’m going to go crazy if I don’t do that scene.

There’s no way that Jim could have picked up Blinky during that time-stop episode unless he’d used the armor’s power-up function, because Blinky’s fucking huge in comparison and he’s made of damn living stone.

I love how Draal was so popular and well-liked, and then they were screaming ‘end him, end him’ when he was at Jim’s mercy, and when he got beaten in the duel all of his former fans were throwing shit and insults at him – not a single one stuck by him. Vendel was the only person who seemed horrified that he was going to get killed. Shows how many real friends Draal had in Trollmarket, as opposed to mere followers and groupies. Popularity can be brutal, and for the son of the ‘very best’ Trollhunter it would have been even more so. I remember something from a Pratchett book that was like, ‘the crowd that applauds at your coronation is the same one that cheers your execution’.

Part of the fight is ranting from the dogfight I had to help break up yesterday. One dog had the other by the ear and the other bit her leg to pieces. It was the first dogfight I’ve been up-close and personal in.

I hc that the Changelings we see are the ones who survived, ie the ones that were fast and ruthless enough to avoid being eaten by Gumm-Gumms and being killed by their fellow Changelings, in competition. Just because Alex was raised a Quaker doesn’t mean she’d forgotten being raised a dirty-fighting opportunity killer – just that she’d capable of choosing when to use which teachings.

I spent like five minutes just listening to people talking in Welsh, it was the trippiest thing ever. I have no idea. I have no idea.

I have no idea if the trolls bleed. We saw Draal get cut and he only had some sort of shiny crystal-stuff inside the cut, and Nomura and Bular both got cut without blood. But kid’s shows and movies seem to avoid blood for some reason; when Jim got his ass kicked by Nomura and the goblins he had red cuts, but no blood. Trolls breathe, definitely have similar digestive systems, have bits that need to be covered up, so I’m going to say they bleed, too.

Alex’s mother’s words were adapted from this: https://quakerlexicon.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/all-of-life-is-a-sacrament/

The term ‘sun-stained’ is from the @decepticonfetti fic Burning Bridges, which you can read on AO3 here.

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