Chapter Text
White-hot, the world slowed to a stop. Jim tried to breathe through the agony that he hadn't felt for... years, now.
Not since the last time a shard of magic had been slammed through a damaged amulet in his chest.
Timeline echoes, he thought, his teeth gritted as he focused on nothing more than getting his next breath. His heartbeat was loud in his ears.
In fact, it was the only thing he could hear.
Blinking as the pain... well, not ebbed, but became bearable, Jim looked up.
Everyone was still. Everything was still. It was like they were all frozen.
His eyes widened. What the--
He swallowed, and forced himself to think.
Well, priority one was standing up.
His chest still aching from the impact, he wriggled his way out from under Aaarrrgghh's hand and turned to look.
The current Gumm-Gumm general was only half facing Jim; his body, and the rest of his focus, was twisted to face Arthur, who was hanging still in the air, frozen mid-leap with Excalibur over his head and anger across his expression.
Jim turned.
Deya, with her scavenged mace, was running toward Aaarrrgghh.
Jim turned.
Blinky cowered behind barrels. Next to him, peering out, was Claire.
And everything was still.
Oh.
Somehow, Jim realized, he had been knocked out of time.
Glancing down at the crystal shard sticking out of his chest, he frowned. "I know Douxie said not to touch you," he said, "but I'm kind of in the middle of something here." Something important, too: if he and Deya didn't manage to imprison Aaarrrgghh, Blinky would never get him to change sides. And if Arthur managed to kill Aaarrrgghh the way he clearly wanted to, well, that would fracture the timeline all to hell.
He raised his hand to the shard, but paused before touching it. The image of Vendel clicking his tongs flashed through his mind. As did the image of the Green Knight--Arthur--ripping the whole thing out of his chest.
It wasn't the same shard, but the similarities were undeniable.
If I screw this up, Jim knew with a sudden, absolute certainty, I will die.
The thought was enough to give him pause. He didn't want to die. He really didn't want to die. And if he died like this, frozen out of time, not even Claire's magic and tears would be able to save him.
(He and Toby had spent a weekend solid teasing her about her Rapunzel-like qualities, until she had finally acted on her threats and dumped them both into the Shadow Realm until they knocked it off. Yet somehow Douxie was still allowed to crack those particular jokes.)
But what other choice did he have? The shard hitting the amulet and the Time Stone once had blasted all of them back to Camelot. Which, hooray (theoretically) because it meant things were going (kinda) like they did the first time. But it getting shoved deeper didn't mean the blackout flare of pain that Arthur's shard had, nor the uncontrollable blinding rage that had been twinned to Jim's transformation into a full troll.
This isn't dark magic, Jim thought. This is just... part of an Akiridion core. Their god's core. And while Gaylen had done bad things, which Douxie was entirely too happy to seethe about if the Akiridions weren't in hearing range, Gaylen hadn't been entirely malicious. He'd created worlds, and made his people far, far more durable than they would have been had they remained on Earth.
Gaylen had been human once, and like all humans, he'd been capable of incredible complexity and simultaneous contradictions.
This was... nowhere as bad as Arthur's malicious magic, which had been purely meant for pain and destruction.
Still, Jim swallowed. He hesitated.
And then, drawing a deep breath, he touched fingers to the shard.
The world went white.
"--trying to master time itself was foolish!" a voice boomed, seemingly right next to Jim's ear.
He flailed, jumping to the side, waving his arms to keep his balance. "I'm sorry?" he offered, but the man who had suddenly appeared didn't seem interested in Jim at all.
In fact--
Jim looked around. He was in some kind of whitewashed circular room he'd never seen before in his life. Blue and green mosaic tiles decorated the floor in a watery pattern, reminding him a bit of the Roman mosaics on the floors of Merlin's old house. On the walls hung pieces of paper, dark writing and drawings on the cream paper. If Jim squinted, they looked a bit like Da Vinci's drawings. There were no windows, but, inset in the ceiling, a huge pane of glass let light in and revealed....
A huge stone, blue like Douxie's magic, reached overhead to the pale clouded sky. A heartstone; Jim could feel its welcoming warmth.
Jim's eyes grew impossibly wider. "Holy shit," he breathed, because Douxie had said... but....
"Atlantis?" Jim breathed, mind spinning.
"We exist in time!" another voice snapped, snapping his attention back to the matter at hand. "We travel forward through it, we have minds to allow us to look backward at it. Why should we not attempt to master it? Your Time Map--"
"Because we are not meant to master it! Guide it, yes, as any being might do. But to know it in its entirety? Man is finite, and some things are ineffable. Your egocentric experiment has destabilized time itself." the first voice retorted. A Black man, his hair done in long braids, wearing robes that reminded Jim of the ones Douxie had worn at Lake Baikal, wreathed his hands around a glowing green stone that hovered, twitching, flickering, in the air. His magic surrounded it, glowing all manner of colors, before dissipating like morning mist. He looked frustrated, irked.
"The Time Stone," Jim said, stepping toward it. "What's going on here?"
He was ignored, like he didn't exist.
"Can't you feel them?" the man continued. "The shudders. It begins."
"What begins?" the other man, younger, pale, dark haired, demanded in unison with Jim.
"Time quakes." The Black man looked up. "They will destroy this time and place where Time has been injured, unless we act quickly."
The younger man looked at him, clearly doubting, then closed his eyes and extended his hand to the Time Stone. He sang a low, wordless note.
The stone resonated, glowing stronger.
He broke off after a moment, looking pale. "You're right," he said. "Master--"
"We must cage it, prevent the wound from spreading," said the elder.
The younger nodded, raising a hand. Cabinets that Jim hadn't even noticed opened. "Dragon's tooth iron."
"Fae gold too, to redirect the eye. No one must know of this." A staff, or what Jim assumed was one, appeared in the man's hand. It looked almost nothing like Merlin or Douxie's. "The stone has been wrought; it cannot be unwrought. But neither may it be buried or entrusted. It must be concealed."
"Even that may not be enough," said the younger.
"It must be," said the elder, and for an instant his eyes seemed like they met Jim's before moving on.
He watched as materials flew around. The penny dropped. "You're making the Chronosphere, aren't you?" Jim asked, unanswered. He touched the edges of his amulet. "I'm still outside of time, aren't I?" he asked the Time Stone in it. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Gaylen," said the older man, stopping Jim's heart, "we need spider silk too, for the bindings. Go fetch some."
"Yes, master." The younger man bobbed a nod and sprinted out the door. Jim stared after him.
The man still remaining sighed, and dropped his head. "So talented," he murmured. "So impetuous." Then he straightened, his hand hovering over the floating Time Stone again. Lengths of metal bar lay on the table below it, waiting, Jim supposed, to be made into the Chronosphere. The man's eyes closed. "So ambitious."
"No kidding," Jim muttered. His heart was pounding. How do I get back to my own time? Because he wasn't Douxie. He didn't need to know the whole history of wizardry. Even if Gaylen, messing around with crystals, had managed to bind time itself into one, presumably as a prelude to turning people into crystals. But that was none of Jim's business except in a distant theoretical sense. He wasn't a wizard; he was a fighter. He needed to return to his own time. Well, to Arthur's time. To make sure that battle in Dwoza went as it was supposed to. Whatever had happened thousands of years ago in Atlantis really had no bearing on what Jim had to do.
Didn't it?
He watched as Gaylen returned, as the two wizards used their arcane powers to create a familiar cage around the Time Stone. Leashing its potential. Hiding it from view.
Hiding it in plain sight - a powerful artifact concealing the even more powerful one at its core.
Their magic burned white hot, blinding in Jim's sight. Until suddenly even he could feel the Chronosphere lock into place.
With a wrench, he was pulled elsewhere.
Jim suddenly stood face to face with the unicorn again. Around them, the world was still. He glimpsed out of the corner of his eye Douxie half hidden behind a bush, the wizard as frozen as everything else.
As frozen as everything but Jim and, apparently, the unicorn.
It tapped its tiny newborn horn against his amulet again. As before, the gears started spinning, faster and faster. A mechanical incantation, Jim thought, but beyond the simple basic meaning of the words, he knew as little about what that meant, magically, as he had the first time.
The unicorn looked up at him, its deep purple eyes speckled with scintillating stars, fathomless.
Like before, Jim fell in.
But this time, he wasn't alone.
Someone else was there with him, catching him in a cloud of sorrow and joy and amethyst light.
We are the part of the universe that looks up and says hello to itself, that someone whispered, wrapping around Jim like a summer's breeze. We see, and we watch, and we grow, and we grieve.
His voice didn't work for a minute, then-- "Are you the unicorn?" Jim croaked.
Laughter permeated him, more a sensation than a sound. That is a word for us, yes. There are others.
"What am I doing here?" Jim asked. "Why are you showing me this?" He didn't understand, any more than he had the first time.
Because you must learn to see. Insubstantial fingers lingered over his amulet. Time has its hand raised to yours; will you not take it?
Douxie would. Jim knew that. Merlin absolutely would. But neither of them were being offered this. Jim was. And he wasn't a wizard. He was just him, a Trollhunter and divine king. He didn't use magic, didn't understand the deeper secrets of how the universe worked. He wasn't Douxie, wasn't Krel. He was, as Douxie had once put it, a man of action. Because actions spoke louder than words, and it was so, so much easier for Jim to show his love through deeds than to speak words that choked his mouth and made him trip over his tongue.
Easier to fight a false king than to ask Claire to a dance.
Easier to cook and clean and keep house than to tell his mother he was putting himself into danger every night.
Easier than anything to fight to defend his friends, his world; harder than anything to say "I love you."
Because words had so little meaning when your dad could ruffle your hair one night and say "Happy birthday, Jimmy. I love you." and be packed and gone before you even woke up the next morning.
Anyone could say "I love you." Showing it, proving you meant it, took a lot more work.
Jim swallowed.
"This will change me, won't it?" Because he might not know much, but he knew this was big. Maybe too big for him to handle. And he'd already been changed so much, either because of others' wills or because of what he'd taken on, what he'd accepted--
Every moment changes you. Mortal beings change and grow; is it not wonderful?
The unicorn sounded like Nari. He wondered if they knew one another.
"If I change too much, what about my friends?" asked Jim. "My family?"
You are afraid.
"Of course I'm afraid," said Jim. "It's rule one: always be afraid."
And what happens when you overcome fear, James Lake Junior?
He didn't know.
Jim closed his eyes and breathed in, trying to sort through his feelings and thoughts. They were mostly a jumbled mess, unhelpful and useless.
In the end, he found his answer in the memory of his real father's voice.
"Never forget that fear is but the precursor to valor," he murmured, tense shoulders easing down as the words soothed him, centered him. As they reminded him of who he was. "That to strive and triumph in the face of fear is what it means to be a hero."
Jim opened his eyes and looked at the endless universe laid out before him. So beautiful. So precious. And somehow... so fragile. It needed someone to protect it.
And that someone, it seemed, was him. "Don't think," he whispered as the universe looked at him through eyes the color of Claire's magic. "Become."
Jim reached out his hand, and let the universe in.
Claire's eyes flew wide as Jim disappeared in a flash and reappeared midair, blocking Arthur's sword with one of his glaives. The two of them tumbled to the ground in a heap even as Deya ran in, swinging at Aaarrrgghh with a yell.
"Do you defend this beast?" Arthur demanded as he rolled to his feet.
"He's not a beast!" Jim snapped as Deya dodged Aaarrrgghh's swipe and actually landed a hit. "And he's not yours!"
"He is an enemy of the good!"
"You talk big about equality, but when it comes down to it, you just want to murder more trolls," Jim shot back. He and Arthur were circling one another. "Stick to taking care of humans, because you're no king here."
"Says the one who is neither man nor troll," spat Arthur.
Jim grinned toothily. "I'm neither, because I'm both."
"You cannot be both fish and fowl," the king protested.
"Watch me," said Jim, and ducked easily under the blow that came from behind him. Arthur, his attention on Jim not Aaarrrgghh, failed to see the hit coming in time, and flew backward under its power, crashing into a wall.
Jim spun. "Deya!" he called, catching her eye. "Go for it!"
Deya glanced upward, then broke into a toothy grin. "Got it," she said, and ran.
"Why, she's a coward after all," murmured Blinky, right by Claire.
Claire smiled. "Put a pin in that thought."
"A pin...?" Blinky clearly didn't understand what she meant.
"Hey, Aaarrrgghh!" Jim yelled. "Wanna dance?"
Aja looked at Douxie, sitting propped up in the corner of the room, and winced at the angle the wizard's neck was at. "That cannot be comfortable," she muttered.
"Let him sleep," said Darci, grabbing Aja's elbow and pulling her away.
Deya wondered, as she ran up the stairs, how Jim had known about her plan. Then she gritted her teeth and would have smacked herself in the forehead, except for the mace she held making that a very bad idea. Time traveler, duh. Which implied that he somehow knew what she was about to do. Except... dropping a cistern on someone's head, even if that someone was high up in the Gumm-Gumm army, couldn't really be an act of that much historical note, could it?
She put the thought aside with her mace as she reached her target. The cistern, she found, throwing her weight against it, was too heavy for her to budge. "Ow," she muttered, rubbing her arm. Which, duh again, she should have realized. The thing was a huge bowl, carved of solid stone, and filled with water.
And water was heavy.
She needed a new angle.
Backing off a couple paces, she examined the setup. Down below, she could hear Jim taunting General Aaarrrgghh, and the snarls of rage he got in response. He was probably being chased, she thought. Well, better him than her.
Off to the side of the cistern, there was a gap against the wall, just large enough for a troll to make their way through. It was probably meant for maintenance - or for the poor suckers who had set the thing up here to squeeze their way back out once it had been put in place.
But it was just small enough that it was perfect for Deya's needs.
She folded herself into the space, back against the wall, and inched her way up. Her legs were stronger than her arms, so if she braced herself and pushed... maybe that would be enough? She didn't have any better ideas, anyway.
Flagnard, the thing was heavy.
But as she applied herself, pushing as hard as she could, she felt it shift. Grinning, she redoubled her effort. "Gonna feel this tomorrow," she grunted. But if this worked, at least she'd have a tomorrow. She was under no illusion about how the Gumm-Gumms probably treated deserters.
"Why does he dodge, rather than engaging?" Blinky muttered to himself as he peered out between the barrels that comprised their meager shelter.
Claire smiled at him. "Jim's a pacifist."
"A pacifist?!" Blinky sounded shocked.
Well, Jim wasn't a perfect pacifist, Claire admitted. But he preferred not to fight if he didn't have to, and she couldn't blame him: fighting got exhausting real fast. She looked out between her own set of barrels, and had to smile. Except for the murderous rage on Aaarrrgghh's face, it was almost like watching the two of them train back home. Jim in his half form was impossibly fast, and was leading Aaarrrgghh in circles. "What better way," she murmured, thinking of Douxie's plan for the Arcane Order, and how alike he and Jim really were, "to defeat an enemy, than to make them into a friend?"
Blinky was silent for a moment. "I beg your pardon, lady sorceress," he said eventually, "but I fear that in the person of a Gumm-Gumm, there is nothing that could become a friend."
Claire's smile never dropped, because on this singular point, she knew more than he did. "How will you know, if you refuse to try?"
The witch was uncommonly secure in her point of view, Blinkous thought. And while it was true he had but rarely encountered human magicians, he couldn't help feeling that not all of them were like her. "You... truly think that he is redeemable?" he asked, gesturing outward from their place of concealment.
"I know so," she said calmly.
Huh. Blinky blinked, and turned back to watching even as the Camelot king finally levered himself up from where he had been flung against the wall, and a cry came from above: "Heads up!" Deya's voice called. "Drinks are on me!"
He watched, wide-eyed, as with a great sheet of water, the enormous gravity-fed cistern that supplied Dwoza with water came bounding down. The fact that it bounced rather than cracked or shattered was a testimony to the skill of the trolls who had made it.
Jim dodged handily. King Arthur flattened himself to the wall. But General Aaarrrgghh... tried to fight it. Tried to fight something well above his weight class, if, Blinky admitted, somewhat below his intellect.
There was something to be said about the futility of fists against the simple forces of nature: mass, gravity, and inertia conspired to defeat the Gumm-Gumm, trapping him wounded in one of the small spaces that was used most often to cache supplies or unruly younglings.
Blinky stared, agape. "I cannot believe that worked," he muttered, even as the human witch shoved barrels out of the way and ran to her lover.
"Jim!" she cried, her face aglow like a star.
"Claire!" He caught her up and swung her around, her skirts flaring.
Grinning, she caught him by the horns and pulled him in for a kiss.
Blinky shuddered. "How repulsive." He could not imagine kissing a human. So soft. So squishy. So... wet.
"Ugh." Deya had come back down the main staircase and apparently shared his feelings. "No accounting for taste, I guess."
King Arthur, meanwhile, wrenched his gaze away from the horrifying spectacle and stalked over to the trapped Gumm-Gumm, sword in hand. "I should end your miserable life, beast," he grated.
Jim broke away from his Claire with a glare. "You can't just go around killing everything," he snapped.
Arthur tensed.
Then, obviously, deliberately, made himself turn away. "The Gumm-Gumm is yours to dispose of," he told Vendel, who had returned, with cautious others, to the scene of the battle.
"Ours?!" This news clearly did not please Vendel. "We are not jailers."
"You're not a lot of things, it seems," Jim sniped at him. Unwisely, Blinky thought.
"And what would you have us do with him?" Vendel asked Jim, gesturing at Aaarrrgghh. "Our resources are already strained to the limit, and you do nothing but add more weight!"
"Perhaps he may be reasoned with," Blinky mused, approaching the Gumm-Gumm with an open hand. The trapped troll snarled and snapped teeth at Blinky. He yanked his hand back. "Or perhaps not!"
Vendel hummed. "If you are so interested in the rehabilitation of the brute, Blinkous, perhaps you should be in charge of his care."
"What? But I--"
Vendel nodded, settling the matter entirely.
Blinky wilted.
"Hate you," the brute growled.
The feeling, Blinky thought, was mutual.
There was something off, Claire thought, in Jim's expression as he looked at Blinky and Aaarrrgghh. As he looked at Deya, who sauntered down the stairs to mixed acclaim - apparently taking out a Gumm-Gumm general was laudable, but using the settlement's water source to do so was less praiseworthy.
"Hey," Claire said softly, catching Jim's attention. "What's wrong?"
"I, uh." His hand rubbed around the crystal jammed into his amulet. "I think I need to talk to Douxie."
Claire blinked. "Okay. We can do that." A simple shadow portal would get them to her teacher.
"Where," asked King Arthur, "is Merlin?"
"Uh." Oh crap. She'd almost forgotten she'd dumped him into the Shadow Realm. "Just a sec," said Claire.
A hasty swirl of black and purple magic later, the Shadow Realm disgorged its most recent, and probably least willing, occupant.
Merlin stumbled to one knee.
"Merlin!" Arthur actually went to his own knee to support him.
When the master wizard looked up, his gaze was haunted. "Morgana has allied with the Arcane Order," he said, his voice a husk. "My king, we must stand against her, or the worlds of men and magic have no chance."
"What?" asked Jim.
A chill ran down Claire's back. "Doux said once that the Shadow Realm is a place of mystery. And I've seen Morgana there. Not that certain people believed me," she couldn't help but add with a little spite.
Jim's arms were warm around her, chasing away the chill. "Well," he said thoughtfully. "I guess he believes you now."
"We must stand against her, and Gunmar," said Arthur, helping Merlin to stand.
"Provide us this weapon you promised, and we shall see," said Vendel levelly.
"The weapon, and men to train yours," Arthur promised.
"Jim!" Krel ran into the fray, followed closely by Toby and more distantly by Dictatious. "I think I have found the answer to Dwoza's energy supply! I need to talk with Douxie."
"Well," said Jim, looking at Claire, "back to Camelot, I guess?"
Claire nodded. And raised her hands to open the door between spaces.