Chapter Text
The minute Jim came back from his “first” day of school, he threw up, cried, threw up several more times, and then proceeded to punch a wall, which annoyingly did not break open so he could get to the candy-floss-like insulation within. Oh wait, he was a fleshbag again, which was… unique? He didn’t really have time to think about it while they were after the order, but he felt gross, especially being fifteen again. He did not miss that acute, annoying pain in his lower back that felt like it constantly needed popping and never did.
His mind was spinning as he sat on his bed with a thump, his head buried in his hands as he took deep breaths in and out. Letting the relief work through him, he remembered his friends were alive, his changeling mentors were alive and evil, his trollish friends were alive, and his best friend was alive! He didn’t just have to save Toby; he could save everyone!
Could he? He had thought Toby would grab the amulet. Jim had needed a morning to sit down for even a minute, dammit, but it had chosen Toby. It had picked Toby! He felt his exhausted eyes prickle again as he took a few more deep breaths. Why was he not worthy anymore? Had he done something wrong? Had killing Toby affected his worthiness for the old amulet?
At this point, he felt a hum from his pocket and, with a tentative hand, drew out an amulet—not one of cogs and medieval magic, but a hybrid of futuristic alien tech and the magic of a decently sociable 900-year-old wizard who was not a cryptic a-hole.
With a tentative finger, he ran it over the amulet. The inscription had changed from "daylight" to something more appropriate. Daylight was a blade made of sunlight, named for its rather unique make, but to deny Excalibur its name felt wrong in his core. With magic, he figured it might be like the first time he picked up the amulet when the inscription changed from trollish to English. Perhaps the amulet or sword knew? The amulet had always been dubiously sentient. Enchanted objects were weird at the best of times.
“For the good of all, Excalibur is mine to command,” he intoned, letting everything—all worries, all thoughts—leave him as he felt the amulet, the memories tombed within, the good, the bad, and the ugly, weave through his mind. His eyes closed as a blast of golden light zoomed out from him in a ring, unnoticed by the man in a boy’s body.
—
Toby let out a small grunt as pins and needles overwhelmed him for a moment, feeling crushed as he fell back on his bed with a gasp. The amulet glowed brightly in his hand as the inscription changed, a blue glow mixing with the gold as Daylight morphed, becoming something appropriate for this new trollhunter.
—
Bular snarled as his chest seized, and he almost toppled from his rafter perch in the museum, as if a force had smashed into his face. Both changelings beneath him gasped with half-finished expressions, their eyes alight as they felt a revision shudder through them, a distinct urge to destroy the bridge running through them as they forced it out of their minds.
—
A wizard and dragon within a bookstore looked in shock as bookshelves rattled. The magic made both groan as Hirisdoux worked his jaw, before sighing in relief as he felt a wing brush the back of his head, his familiar in dragon form as he steadied himself with his blue-haired associate.
—
Within a councilwoman’s house, a girl with a blue streak in her hair instinctively moved into the shadows as she felt her heart pang with longing and her face streaked with tears for a moment, but a similar sense of relief moved through her for reasons unknown.
—
The trolls within the Troll Market looked up as the Hearthstone pulsed with mana, the crystal acting as a resonator as the cavern shook. Vendal, blinded and distracted by the pain in his chest, was caught by Draal’s roar. The fresh grief was replaced with concern for the old goat as he caught him. The two had been discussing the amulet, and though Draal would be hard-pressed to admit it, grief for his father.
The other trolls—Bagwallda, Glub, even Blinkous and Aaurghmount—looked up as they waited for the sun to set. The Hearthstone stood as it always had, but they felt relief at its continued existence.
A gnome grunted as he grabbed his head and chittered to himself as he took off his hat, feeling his horn as his eyes flashed gold. He looked at a bare cave he shouldn’t be living in and then out at Bagwallda’s cavern shop before grabbing a glue trap and shredding it. There was no corpse or skeleton on it yet as he began to gather his things.
—
Thousands of miles away, a set of three—one of flame, one of ice, and one of life—had their eyes widened. The one of flame intoned in a two-toned voice, “Magic, new magic.”
“Interesting, it has been centuries since new magic was unleashed,” the chilling voice of the one on ice said as frost gathered on his staff.
“Siblings, we need to wait. New magic means more changes!” the one of life and death pleaded as the other two merely looked on in quiet consideration.
—
A tentacled being let out a pleased hum from her very much unpolluted Russian lake. She worked hard to keep microplastics out of her icy abode. Thank you very much. Well, she couldn’t fault the wizard for remaking the amulet with her sword. She had foreseen as much as the eldest of the oracles, where her sword would end up, and honestly, the Lake boy would do the Pendragon magic well. Running through her head in a language that no human could ever speak or hardly hope to understand, that roughly translated to, “Hehe, up yours, wizard douche.”
—
Jim took a deep breath as he felt magic, a familiar feeling of being encased in magic soothing a little of the stress he was feeling. But honestly, after six months of struggling with being half troll, human emotions felt muted in comparison. Despite their slowness to change—or maybe in relation to their lack of change—trolls - felt everything rather acutely. And with human hormones on top of it, he was used to explosions rather than this continuous human anxiety.
He willed Excalibur into his hand, giving it a few test swings as he sighed, letting it and the armor vanish. He made his way out of his rooms, moving down the steps as he began to cook. His sword-wielding arm felt weak and puny compared to both his former human self and troll self, and he internally groaned as he grabbed a carrot, slicing it into half-rings as he finished peeling it before dropping it into a pot, filling it with a little water to break down later ingredients. He did notice a few of the carrots looked weirdly golden. Reaching in to pluck them out, he revealed normal orange carrots. Looking back in the pot, those two glimmering orbs stayed at the bottom, and Jim, in a cold sweat, did the only sensible thing: he winked, one of the orbs vanishing as he fell back, carrots spilling as he rushed upstairs, swinging into the bathroom as he heard the wood chip under his grip.
Two glowing blue eyes stared back at him, the pupil a luminescent black reptilian slit, the iris electric blue, and the sclera the same gold he saw in the pot.
“Fu-u-u-UCK,” he groaned as he slammed his head in his hands. He was beyond stressed at this point. No tears left to cry, and he had jack for diddly-fucking-squat for help. If Toby was the trollhunter, he needed to become less Bular, kill everyone.
Did you go back in time to mess up his ancestry? Was his dad a changeling? No, changelings had normal pupils, just red, and their entire eyes glowed otherwise. Before he could sink further, he heard a clank. His ear actually twitched as he peeked out of the bathroom window, seeing a blue glow shining from Toby’s window and a shaggy bush moving below his window. Then the bush sprouted four arms and a head, and the bush was thrown away, revealing a familiar-shaped troll who let out a short phrase in trollish. A hedge toppled over, revealing the quadrupedal Kreubara known as ARRRGHH, affectionately referred to as Arrrgh by those of less boisterous mannerism.
Jim groaned. The emotional whiplash of discovering his magical attributes and then seeing his admittedly goofy mentor moving around like a damn looney tune was the first real laugh he had today. He broke down, laughing uncontrollably as he heard a yelp from Toby at the troll in his window, his eyes a pair of flashlights as he heard the sound of broom bristles on stone. Peeking up, he saw Toby whacking Blinky in the face and the trolls complaining about his eyes as Arrrgh made his way to the back door. The sound of startled cats and then the groaning wood followed as he just kept laughing, deep belly laughs as he smacked his head on the windowsill. Everything soon quieted as he looked at the first three of the ninth configuration bumbled.
He flopped on his bed, eyes still alight, but he didn’t care at that moment. Glowing eyes be damned, he was happy. His life was his normal, and even if they didn’t remember him, it was nice to see them being themselves, with nothing world-ending in sight, only his.
He looked up at the ceiling, his eyes slowly fading in their glow as he felt a warmth in his chest, and he let out a relieved chuckle. He would carry the weight as he always had, he was strong, and soon, his friends would soon be strong, as well, the world was his to carry, but the stones that kept Atlas aloft were laid. Young Atlas, indeed.