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earth-ambassador-jim · 5 years

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Changeling Loyalties chapter 8

Goblins and Conspiracies

Toby is quite happy with his life, but then the Amulet of Daylight just had to choose his human friend. What’s a changeling to do? Good thing Toby never really liked Gunmar anyway.

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

The search for the missing amulet was proving to be incredibly frustrating. Blinky kept suggesting that they should try shrinking Jim down to have him search for it. Toby was very staunchly against it and, as Aaarrrgghh was also siding with him and against Blinky on that particular issue, Jim had decided to save that for a last resort.

“I’m just saying we should try lighting a fire in the entrance to see if the smoke comes out somewhere else,” Toby said.

“And if it does? What’s to say that the amulet is not lodged in some crevice somewhere? Just waiting for discovery?” Blinky returned.

“Oh! Maybe we could use a spycam!” Toby held his hands out parallel. “We could like strap it to a remote controlled car and send it in. It would be totally secret agent cool!”

“Preposterous, your human vehicles are far too large to fit into such a small hole. Why, even the smallest of them would not even fit into the fergalator.”

Toby patted Blinky’s arm and shook his head.

“No. No. We have small toy cars that drive around just like the regular ones.”

“Really?” Blinky blinked and cocked his head. “How fascinating! Can you acquire one of these tiny cars for our use?”

Jim glanced at Aaarrrgghh who let out a chuckle and leaned over to him.

“Blinky like learning human things,” He whispered very loudly. “Want car to play with.”

Jim grinned at that. Blinky shot the large troll an affronted look.

“I’m not planning to play with the car I merely wish to document how it works so that I might better understand human culture. That is all,” Blinky said crossing his arms with a huff.

Toby snickered.

“That’s okay, you can play with it too…”

“What is going on here?” Everyone jumped at Vendal’s gruff voice.

Jim turned to see the elderly troll bend slightly as he entered the shop. He used his staff to brush aside a hanging sock before moving to stand pointedly in front of Blinky.

“Why is the Trollhunter not in the Forge training? I believe I heard you talking about cars. What sort of foolishness are you up to now?”

Blinky winced lowering his head slightly as he tapped his fingertips together.

“Well… You see…”

“I lost the amulet,” Jim said coming to stand beside him.

“Master Jim…”

He couldn’t let Blinky take the blame for something that was his fault.

“A gnome stole it from me. We caught the gnome, but we haven’t managed to get the amulet back yet. We’re working on it.”

Vendal stared at him for a moment. Jim straightened up, feeling rather like he was in the principal’s office waiting to find out if he was going to have detention. The elderly troll let out a huff and turned back toward Blinky.

“You have all of today and tomorrow to find the amulet. After that the Trollhunter must return to his training.”

“But without the amulet…!” Blinky started.

Vendal pinned him with a stare.

“You will continue looking for it. I will make arrangements for a substitute trainer in the meantime.”

Vendal turned away from them to walk out of the shop.

“Find the Amulet soon. The longer it remains lost the more unrest will grow in TrollMarket.”

~~~~

“Well, hey! Maybe it will turn up tomorrow.” Toby said in a tone of deliberate cheerfulness as he and Jim made their way home.

“I doubt it,” Jim said with a sigh. “I can’t believe it, I find an important magic artifact and then I lose it… Ugh! Stupid!”

“It’s not your fault…”

“How?!” Jim snapped, turning toward him. “I was the one who couldn’t hold onto it against a gnome. A gnome! How am I supposed to protect people from Bular if I can’t protect an amulet from one lousy gnome?” His shoulders slumped and he gripped the straps of his pack. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.”

Toby opened his mouth and then closed it, unsure of what to say. He didn’t want Jim to be Trollhunter, and he was fairly certain Jim didn’t want to be either, but he hadn’t anticipated Jim taking the loss of the amulet this way. He knew about his friend’s anxiety, he had even learned some strategies to help him with it over the years, but…

But he hadn’t been prepared for Jim to blame himself this hard for it, for it to affect his sense of confidence this way.

Toby frowned.

Would it go away? Could he expect Jim to move past losing the amulet or would he just keep blaming himself for it? He just wanted his friend safe, was that too much to ask?

Why did things have to be complicated?

~~~~

For history class Mr. Strickler was taking them to the museum for a more hands on lesson and some general all around fun. Honestly, long-term goal to destroy humanity aside, he really was a good teacher.

“Excuse me.”

Toby turned around from the rock exhibit he had been looking at to find Claire approaching them. He hazarded a glance to the side toward Jim. Yep, he was turning bright red. Toby snorted and rolled his eyes.

“What’s up?” Toby asked, because someone had to respond to her.

Claire blinked at him.

“Oh sorry! I was talking to Jim,” She said with an apologetic smile. “But I didn’t mean to…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Toby waved her off. He grabbed Jim and shifted him forward. “I’ll leave you two alone.”

He shot a wink and a thumbs-up to Jim who had recovered and was now sputtering. Hopefully he would not fall into trying to impress her with mediocre Spanish like he had the past few times he had attempted to talk to her. Toby shook his head. There were a certain things about humans that were still super weird to him. Dating practices were definitely at the top of the list. Trolls just went for the throat… both figuratively and literally. He paused with a frown. Or was that just Gum-Gums?

He was drifting along searching for something else to occupy him when Eli’s high pitched voice drew his attention.

“At first, I thought it was an alien,” He was saying. “Definitely not human. It’s some sort of monster.”

The girl he was talking to leaned away and rolled her eyes.

“Come on. Give it up, Eli.”

Toby inched closer.

“No, no! This time I have photographic evidence,” He insisted waving his phone.

Uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.

Toby quickly nudged his way in between Eli and the two other teens.

“Hey, Eli, can I see your phone real quick?” He said swiping it from his hands. He looked at the screen and then did a double take. “Oh my gosh.”

A chill ran through his veins. That was definitely a goblin. A squashed goblin. They would be out for revenge. He needed to do damage control fast.

He twisted as if he was going to turn to show the picture to one of the other kids. He let his feet cross and went down with a yelp the phone clattering out of his hands.

“Are you all right?” Eli squeaked.

“Yeah,” Toby let out a self-depreciating chuckle as the other kids around him laughed. “Just clumsy I guess… oh here let me get that for you!”

Toby grabbed Eli’s phone off the ground, hitting the delete button as he did so. A picture of Eli posing with ninja stars replaced the goblin.

“Oh no, I deleted it!” Toby did his best to sound truly sorry as he pressed the phone back into Eli’s hands. “I’m so so sorry.”

“That’s okay… I guess,” Eli sounded really put out. Toby would have felt bad but he had probably just saved his life.

“Look,” He said thinking quickly. “If there’s any way I could make it up to you…”

“Not really,” Eli sighed.

“Hey… I know it’s a little late, but I really did want to hear about what you found.”

The skinny human immediately perked up.

In just a few minutes Toby had all the information on the goblin he needed, way too much personal information, and a few weird conspiracies.

“Well it’s been nice talking to you, but I need to go check on Jimbo,” Toby said, peeling himself away from the conversation. “Bye!”

“Bye,” Eli waved. “Let’s talk again?”

Toby wove through the other students, twisting his head this way and that, until he spotted Jim. He broke free of a small cluster that were ogling a mummy and jogged over to his friend.

“Jimbo! How did it go?”

Jim glanced at him and sighed.

“Okay…. But I think…” He sighed again, shoulders slumping. “I think she might actually have a crush on you.”

Toby choked on his spit and went into a coughing fit.

“Me?! Why would she have a crush on me?”

He had interacted with Claire only a handful of times and she had literally never shown any interest outside of getting whatever project they were working on and basic social niceties. She’d even gotten his name wrong a few times.

“Well she approached me to talk about you. She had a whole bunch of questions.”

Toby stilled. Questions weren’t good.

“What sort of questions?”

“Like what sort of stuff you do in your free time, what kind of things you like, and if you had any pets… what was the other one?” Jim broke off tapping the back of his hand. “Oh yeah… She wanted to know if you had a part time job or something?”

Toby frowned. This was weird…

“Look Jim. I don’t know why she’s asking those things, but I highly doubt she has a crush on me and if she does I have no interest of returning it,” He said firmly, making careful eye contact with Jim.

“You don’t have to…”

“Seriously. I’m not interested in her,” Toby repeated firmly.

Well aside from why she was asking questions about him…

“I believe you,” Jim said. “I guess I’m just disappointed…”

Toby held back a groan. Why him? He grabbed Jim’s arm.

“Come on let’s go look at the Viking exhibit.”

Who knows, maybe there’d be a picture of Alfhild or something.

~~~~

Toby wasn’t terribly excited to spend a night off hiding in the bushes across from Eli’s house, but life was like that sometimes. Unfortunately Kracka hadn’t dropped by so he was on his own. From what he could figure out it sounded like it was a delivery driver who had squashed the goblin: one who had just happened to leave a note about where and when he would return.

He checked his watch and yawned, another ten minutes. It was about time to start scouting to see if he could find the goblin swarm.

There was a loud whine from an approaching engine and Toby ducked back down behind his bush waiting for it to pass. It didn’t. Was the delivery driver early? Toby peered over the bushes.

It was Steve.

Toby watched in puzzlement as the blond teen parked his Vespa in the driveway and approached the front door. He knocked and stood there, shifting and glancing around every few seconds. After about a minute a woman, who Toby assumed must be Eli’s mother, opened the door and let him in.

That was… strange… Was there a group project Toby had forgotten about?

Before he could think about it much more there was the rumble of another vehicle approaching. He ducked down just as the delivery truck pulled to a halt before the house. The driver hopped out, singing tonelessly to whatever music was playing on his headphones, and retrieved a package from the back. Toby winced as he dropped it a few times before making it to the front door. How did that guy still have a job?

Movement from the corner of his eye brought his attention back to the issue at hands.

The goblins were emerging from the bushes. Several of them climbed up the light poles. It was hard to tell at this distance, but he thought that he saw Bob on one of the far poles. Other goblins were beginning to emerge from the bushes; it seemed that Toby’s guess was correct. The swarm flowed down the street toward their hapless victim.

The delivery driver handed off the package to Eli, who had answered the door, and then pushed past him into the house. Toby tensed. The driver was already a dead man, but if he stayed in Eli’s house too long the goblins might go after him as well.

Toby debated whether he should do something. Goblins were near impossible to reason with in this state, but if he got ahold of Kracka he might be able to get him to convince Fragwa to wait to go after the driver until…

The goblin swarm descended on the delivery truck. It shook back and forth violently as they began to devour it.

Right… He’d forgotten that goblins often didn’t differentiate between objects and people when they were going for revenge. Toby felt his muscles relax; it seemed there would be no need for death tonight. In a matter of seconds the truck was gone. He glanced up and down the street to make sure there were no onlookers.

The doorknob started to turn. Thinking quickly Toby raised his hands to his mouth and let out a “watch out” call. The goblins’ heads shot up at the sound and they scattered into the bushes only a moment before the door opened and the delivery driver came out.

Toby glanced around for an escape route. It was best that he got out of here before the delivery man called the police to look for his “stolen” truck. They would wonder what he was doing here so late at night. He should probably note down the event to give to Alfhild or Stricklander; the Janus Order liked to keep track of these sorts of things.

There was a crackle from a bush near him and he spotted a goblin he didn’t recognize emerging. It eyed him speculatively. Not wanting to become dinner, he quickly flashed his eyes at it. It tilted its head.

He heard a surprised chatter from his right and then another goblin moved in front of him. It snarled at the first goblin which laid its ears back and skittered away.

“Oh! Hi Foon,” He said, relieved.

“moi hara whm?” Foon asked.

“I was just making sure no one saw.”

Foon cocked its head. “Moi sell wewsh’oiw?” It wanted to confirm that him who did the watch out call.

Toby nodded.

Foon grinned and Toby relaxed. It looked like it was off of the frenzy of the revenge hunt now.

“Wa rayacga salalrewa. moi wouc?” Foon asked, bouncing on its toes.

Right. They usually celebrated if they managed a successful revenge hunt. Toby wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to join though. Goblin revelries got pretty wild and he was tired.

Foon tugged Toby’s pant leg before climbing up on his head. “Moi lism. Moi wa goc’w saa mish.”

It was right, Toby thought guiltily, with all the stuff going on with Jim and cleanup he hadn’t had much time to just hang out with the goblins.

“wac'toir,” Toby decided: he would go along with them. It would be nice to relax and let loose just a little. Anyway tomorrow was Saturday, so he could sleep in before he and Jim went to Trollmarket.

He took one last glance at Eli’s house where Eli and Steve where talking to the delivery man, before slipping away through the bushes.

~~~~

Author Note:

I'm back!

In case anyone is wondering the goblins are speaking a cipher (well starting this chapter anyway). Any real words in another language that appear are purely coincidental.

Nice to get those background story lines progressing.

There will be no Jlaire (Jim x Claire) in this story. Just figured I'd clear that up.

Anyway as always let me know what you think!

See y'all next time!

#Trollhunters #Tales of Arcadia #trollhunters fanfiction #toby domzalski #Tobias Domzalski #Jim Lake Jr #changeling toby #changeling!Toby #james lake jr #Changeling Loyalties #blinky #aaarrrgghh #Goblin OCs #OC: Foon #OC: Bob #elijah pepperjack #my posts #my writing #Getting all those sweet sweet plotlines set up

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