Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One moment, the blackened water was rushing up his nose with all the feral aggression of a common pixie, his body growing limp and useless in the murky currents of this fated elixir. A heartbeat- he definitely remembered a heartbeat echoing around him plaintively, a lingering snare to cap these penultimate moments. His? Likely. Most definitely. If he wasn’t already terrified beyond measure and thus spending every last scrap of consciousness life allotted him filled with dread at the fact that he couldn’t move a single limb and was probably (maybe?) drowning, and also that he literally had no understanding of what was supposed to happen to him after submerging himself in this viscous wizard goop anyways, perhaps he would have also honed in on the cries coming from the surface. As it was, his family’s words fell on deaf ears.

A faint shudder assaulted him as he continued to sink, wringing the last strokes of destiny emboldened duty from his mind. He genuinely thought he’d come to peace with his choice when he stepped into the tub. He thought, maybe…

Thought what? That this was what he- chose, it’s his choice, his!- truly wanted? That the salvation of two worlds rest in- numbers, we’re stronger together!- solely his hands, that to save his friends he- could only defeat Morgana alone, it’s already too late- had to betray them?

No.

No .

Even if it turned tragedy into conquest, vanquished the Eternal Night and all her agents once and for all, even if-  deep within his soul, he knew there was no peace in the path he’d chosen for himself.

A blistering warmth sliced through his chest right where the amulet lay. The only sound his paralyzed body managed to produce in response was a low gasp of surprise. Ancient magic, amplified by whatever concoction Merlin sloshed together in his mail order blender, spilled from the amulet in waves.

And it cleaved the human trollhunter in two.

At first, all that met him was silence.

All-encompassing.

Isolating.

Like the hazy nothingness of a concussion, or the acoustics-absorbing sound booth in the media room at school, except a hundred thousand times worse. It left his mind fuzzy, grasping with desperation for whatever stimuli that still existed in this dark, ceaseless-

Wait a minute. Where was he, exactly? What happened to the weight of his armor, and the liquid pressing down on him oppressively from above? Or the lulling tempo of his heart? Experimentally, he shifted his limbs, finding no resistance. He nearly let out a bark of laughter in his sheer relief, but reflexively, the concept of unwavering silence chained his mouth under lock and key. If he spoke with deliberate intention and still heard nothing? To be frank, he genuinely feared he’d go mad.

“Jim Lake.”

The command, cutting through the nothingness in a familiar timbre, shook through whatever last threads of anxieties gripped him about the previous silence. Get a hold of yourself, Jim. He could hear, he was fine. Maybe the world was simply… holding its breath.

“Rise, Trollhunter. Rise and greet your kin.”

Wait, that voice. He thought he recognized it before, but- was that…

An image of the amulet as he first discovered it flashed through his mind, nestled between the cracked, sun-stained remains of-

Kanjigar?

Jim opened his eyes. He hissed as a spotty kaleidoscope of light assaulted him, symptom of keeping them closed for so long. The splotches of blue light coalesced first into thin bands, and then- as his mind began assigning meaning to pattern- into runic designs and familiar faces. Kanjigar, exactly as he suspected, peered inquisitively at him from above. Behind stood the rest of his trollhunting predecessors, surrounding him like Zeus and his pantheon of deities. Every last one was adorned in a variation of the amulet’s armor, all fitted to their body types. They looked exactly as he remembered the last time he visited the Void, before Trollmarket’s capture, but somehow… more tangible?

The predecessors whispered among themselves, nasal, baritone, and lilted voices alike blending into one uniform presence, one mind. If they were saying anything of consequence however, he didn’t catch it. Regardless, this familiarity was a great comfort to him in these early moments. He exhaled with a shaky sigh, his first breath since he submerged himself in the tub. Once more he found solid surface below his back, so relieved that he was no longer floating into oblivion that he genuinely considered rolling over and kissing the rough stone.

“Rise,” Kanjigar commanded once again, extending his ghostly hand. “When the proper time comes, the trollhunter will need the help of all in the Void.”

Mind still running sluggish, Jim reached out to grab his hand, his five fingers wrapping tightly around the troll’s four despite their transparency.

And that’s when he first realized.

His breath picked up in blind panic as he yanked his hand away and pulled it in front of his face. He turned it every which way. Flexed his digits. Desperately hoping this were all a nightmare or hallucination induced by the elixir, he blinked rapidly- a trick he’d often used in childhood to force himself out of bad dreams once he’d grown lucid. Against his best efforts, everything remained the same. The iridescent glow of the Hero’s Forge, the other trollhunters, hesitantly advancing towards him, his own translucent skin! The shock of it all pushed him to finally sit up, and lo and behold:

His entire body was like the others’, see-through and glowing a pale blue.

“Aaugh!!” he exclaimed, rapidly shuffling away from the others on hands and knees.

His chest gave phantom pangs as as he tried to calm a racing pulse that, the more he thought about it, didn't really exist. He held his arms out, traced the thin blue lines that denoted the hem of his sweatshirt. That’s all he was now, it seemed- an outline. He cast no shadow, there was no solidness to his form, h-he… he looked somewhat like Claire did, when he and Toby found her soul in the Shadow Realm. Except blue. That was definitely a difference. Palm meeting the ground, he then pushed himself to his feet. His eyes darted along his torso. Thankfully he was still in one piece, so there was that going for him, but the troubling fact of the matter remained; he now stood in the Void, and this time appearances suggested he’d become a notable feature of it. The Jim Lake Junior expansion pack, apparently released for download far earlier than anyone was expecting.

“Peace, young one,” another voice coaxed, one lighter in register. He turned, bumping right into the unmistakable presence of Deya the Deliverer, her hair fanning outwards like a bespoke halo.

Every wave of panic he’d attempted to bury in the sand up until now returned with a vengeance. He pressed his palms to his head to steady himself. If he were flesh and bone right now, he was sure they’d be clammy as hell.

“Aw man, I’m actually dead, aren’t I?” he shouted, tightly gripping at his hair. “Merlin’s potion killed me!”

Kanjigar crossed before him to speak, body language stiff. The others merely looked on with discomfort. Presumably they’d been forced to spearhead this sort of troubling conversation before and had no desire to lead it again.

“Yes, and… no. Jim Lake is still alive, and still the trollhunter.”

Jim threw his arms to the side. “But I’m right here!”

“That is true,” he agreed with a curt nod. “However, you are also out there.”

A dense cloud coalesced in the space between him and the master trollhunter, images of the living world phasing into view within. Or at least, he assumed they were. The images were fuzzy, darkened. The teen stepped back to gain a clearer sight of it, squinting.

“What is-?”

As he spoke, their mirror into the land of the living cleared significantly, and he saw…

“Me,” he whispered, watching his own limp, armored body sink through a murky abyss. His eyes blew wide. Talk about out-of-body experiences. “That’s me, a few minutes ago. And then-“

He continued to view the recent past through the mist. Light flared from the amulet, spilling from either side of his past self’s armor. The force the magic rendered was enough to wrench his spine backwards, even eliciting a grimace from the otherwise paralyzed human youth. It reminded Jim a little of the concentrated daylight that impaled Bular once he struck him with the sword, burning him to cinders from the inside out. But then this other Jim’s jaw gently dropped open, and from within came a luminescent orb, shining blue.

“His soul,” one of the predecessors cried out in a mournful baritone.

As he watched, the orb- or his soul, he supposed- split in two. One part promptly re-entered his body. The remaining half of the soul floated around the motionless trollhunter for a passing moment, illuminating the features of his face, before fading away.

Jim’s brow furrowed. Confusion brimming within, he spun towards his elder. “Wait, what was that?”

“Watch,” Kanjigar instructed, jabbing a finger towards their looking glass.

The amulet in the chestplate pulsed once more, and as if in a relinquishing sigh, spools of magic poured from his mouth and cocooned his body in fetal position. Jim stared, speechless, as it rewrote the very framework of this other Jim Lake from the ground up. His limbs became longer, stockier- the armor expanding to compensate. Human skin began to crystallize into smooth stone, stormy blue in color. A pair of horns, striated, grew from atop the back of his skull, curving into fine points. When the magic deemed its duty done it parted from him, leaving- just as Merlin promised- a troll in its wake.

The (admittedly kinda... otherworldly) image of himself as a troll fizzled away, to be replaced by visions of his counterpart stumbling through the front door only to faint in front of his mother seconds later, and of his friends pacing near the trollish Jim’s unconscious body, worry etched on their faces.

“Toby… Claire,” he said, yearning with every flicker of his nonexistent heart for the comfort of their embrace. He reached to caress his girlfriend’s cheek as she paced towards him. But instead of feeling the warmth of her face under his light touch, his hand passed through the image cast upon the cloud’s surface. Claire walked out of frame, and Jim spun as if he might see her pacing alongside him in the Void, on the other side. No such luck.

It was only him, forever exiled with all the other souls who once carried the same burden. His throat tightened, in the way it does when the sole thing one desires is to run as far from present reality as possible and cry.

The cloud dissipated, leaving him face to face with Kanjigar once again.

“Jim,” he said softly, in a misplaced attempt of comfort. “A part of your soul passed on. It died. There is no delicate way to rephrase this. In order for Merlin’s magic to work, something had to be left behind.”

“So what am I, then?”

“I believe… a manifestation of his humanity.”

Jim’s voice hitched. He looked at his hands, thinking of the new, changed Jim Lake currently lying on the couch in his living room. The part of his soul that left him, the portion that he now represented here in the Void, was his humanity? “But Blinky always- he always said-“

“-that humanity is your strength, we know,” he finished.

“We know, but we disagree,” Deya chimed in, gesturing to the others.

“Wha- what do you mean?”

“Think about it. If Merlin chose you for your humanity, then what good would it do him to transfigure you into a troll?” Kanjigar pointed out with a flourish of his fingers. “No, no. Blinky- as he oft does, despite his well meaning nature- got it completely wrong. It never was your humanity that made you a great trollhunter, Jim.”

Kanjigar knelt, lowering himself to his level so as to look him in the eye.

“It’s your heart,” he said, a flash of pride evident in his gaze. “Your fighting spirit. An endless compassion for life unlike yours, the sort I’ve never seen in any of my brethren. Merlin made an exceptional choice, in choosing you. But he made a very poor one in pushing you to these lengths.”

“We’ve discussed Merlin’s decision, before you manifested here,” Deya stated, clasping her gauntleted hands behind her back as she crossed to Jim. “We find it an insult to the honor and autonomy of a trollhunter.”

A direct insult. To trollhunter honor! He had to admit, these words stung as sharply as Creeper’s Sun. Especially from the likes of her, the most legendary of all the trollhunters. “Hey, I just chose what I thought was right at the time, I never knew it’d end up like this!” he protested.

Deya put her hand up.

“Oh, but not to fret, our quarrel is not with you, young one,” she said, brow raising. “Rather, it’s with the wizard himself. You felt compelled to follow his orders, believing them the only path to victory. He, on the other hand, manipulated you to his whims, providing the appearance of a free choice wherein none truly existed.”

“And for that, he must face recompense!” another of his predecessors called. An echo of spirited agreements followed:

“Recompense!”

“Make him pay!”

“Merlin doesn’t care about his champions!”

“Silence!” Kanjigar commanded, stamping his foot upon the ground. The vibrations rang throughout the Void, pulling the crowd of predecessors back to order. “We shall discuss this matter later. Right now, we ought to give our newest trollhunter a chance to settle in.”

Deya summoned Daylight within her armored hand, and pumped the longsword in the air. “Meeting adjourned!” she exclaimed with power in her voice.

At her signal, the tiered formation they’d organized themselves into broke apart. Some continued to mill about, their conversation filling the Forge with warmth and laughter. Others receded towards the sidelines, their non corporal forms compressing into dense orbs of light Jim now knew represented one’s soul. He glanced back to the center of the space. Kanjigar and Deya spoke amongst themselves, along with, it seemed, another… a soul floated just above the last trollhunter’s shoulder. There was no way of knowing who it was without them taking on visible appearance, however.

Jim glanced around, still deliberating what he should do next. In fact, what was there to do around here anyways?

“Hey!” he called, jogging to catch up after one of his predecessors. They paused, turning to regard him with neutral curiosity. Like many of the others they had a nose ring, except theirs was golden and encrusted with jewels, far more glitzy than was common. They were short (for a troll, at least- still taller than him) and stocky, and had four eyes. Four eyes… Jim’s mind whirred, gears scraping against each other as he tried to place this trollhunter’s identity from the records Blinky always used to show him. It’d been a while, perhaps a month. Last he’d seen of those manuscripts was back in Trollmarket, before Gunmar’s escape. “It’s, uh- Maddrux the Many, right?”

The trollhunter in question caught him off guard with what was practically a happy jig, elation framing their features. “By my grace, is this true? Someone finally remembers me? ”

Jim laughed softly, running his fingers through the back of his hair. “Yeah, I’ve read about you. Blinky- that’s my trainer- always made it a point to know who came before me. Oh, and also,” he said, pointing, “I used your stone! It didn’t work out for me too well, though. How did you keep control of all your doubles?”

“That old thing? It requires a great sum of inner tranquility. Not just anyone can master it, I’m afraid,” they said, puffing their chest out.

Haughty, Jim thought, deciding not to further comment on that. Good to know. Since he’d be stuck here for- well- maybe the next eternity, it’d do him good to stay off his predecessors’ crap lists.

“So… what all do you do around here?”

“Provide council to the current trollhunter.”

“No, but besides that. When you’re not giving advice. What do you do in between?”

Maddrux pursed their lips, genuinely having to think about this answer, apparently. “We watch the current trollhunter’s feats. Convene as a group to deliberate troubling matters when necessary… I suppose some of us gather to retell old victories, on occasion.”

Jim only nearly held back the long, suffering sigh building within. Sounded like they were a real bundle of fun, these elder trollhunters. Figures. Man, what he’d do to have Toby here right now. If anyone could lighten these stiff necks up, it was him.

An idea came to mind. “Hey, do any of you ever spar?” he asked hopefully.

The troll shook their head. “It’s not customary. I wouldn’t say it never happens, but surely not often.”

“Jim!”

He swung around, seeing Kanjigar beckoning him over. Deya and the second soul he noticed earlier flanked him on either side.

Maddrux chose this moment to make their timely exit. “Be thankful,” they said in parting, compressing into spherical form. “Be thankful trollhunters of legend actually care to know your glorious name!”

He blinked in confusion for a moment, once they’d floated away. Huh. They were certainly a… a character, weren’t they? Answering his previous summons, Jim walked across the Hero’s Forge to meet up with his immediate predecessor.

“I see you’ve met Maddrux the Many,” Kanjigar said, the humored glint in his eyes betraying his neutral expression. The other soul continued to float around his shoulders, a comet’s tail of soft blue light tracing its path wherever it went.

“Great Gonka Morka,” Deya scoffed, crossing her arms, “Maddrux is a diva. They like to think we don’t associate with them because we think we’re more elite. But in reality, most avoid them because they’re absolutely insufferable.”

“Yeah, I kinda got that vibe too,” he said, with a small nervous laugh. “Anyways, you called me?”

“Mmm,” Kanjigar affirmed in the positive. “Yes! A surprise for you, now that you’re seeming to come to terms with this a bit more.

“We didn’t want to overwhelm you with too much too soon, young one,” Deya added.

“What is it?”

The last trollhunter stepped back, offering a nod to the soul drifting next to him. This soul pulsed bright, before beginning to unwravel, aligning itself into the bulky shape of a troll. The lines of familiar, broad horns wove together before Jim’s very eyes, and then the shards of crystals that adorned his back. When all was done the troll huffed, stretching out his arms. He offered Jim a warm smile.

“Hello again, flesh bag.”

The sight filled him with a kind of joy he’d never felt before, not in all sixteen years of his life.

“Draal!”

Chapter Text

His soul eclipsed with sheer happiness and relief, he practically threw himself at his once-thought-lost friend. For a split second he feared it was all grief and smoke and mirrors, that he’d merely phase right through the troll’s blue tinted spectral form, even though grabbing Kanjigar’s hand earlier surely proved this world had some degree of solidity. But blessedly, this was not so. Draal stumbled one step backwards as Jim wrapped his arms as far around him as he could, dropping his head against his chest.

“You’re alive,” he gasped in relief.

“Not alive, regrettably. Not really. This is the Void, remember? I’m nothing but a ghost, same as all the others.”

“I don’t care! I watched you die,” he said, barely able to croak out that last word in his hoarse state. “You took that knife for me, and then you fell and you turned to stone and died, a- and the cavern collapsed, and I couldn’t even stop, couldn’t mourn, o- or-“

“Jim,” Draal reminded in an almost uncharacteristically gentle manner. “My death is not your burden to bear. It is my life and my honor to serve the trollhunter. To… to watch over my friends. And I can rest easy knowing that at least that part of my duty has been fulfilled.”

“But you’re my friend too,” he said, peering up to meet his green and gold rimmed eyes. “I should’ve protected you, should’ve saved you! I was so close, and then…”

Instinctively, he lifted his hand to dab away tears with his palm, before finally realizing with shock that he hadn’t actually been crying at all. He didn’t notice until now but he never had been here, at least not in any physical sense. His heart wept, and he felt like his eyes were puffy and wet, but they somehow… weren’t. Why weren’t-? Oh. Oh, of course. He was a spectral being now. His body was nothing more than an outline of hard light, woven together by the might of ancient magic. And much like the Void’s window to reality, this instinct to feel the tangible effects his emotions summoned was merely an afterimage of the human life he’d left behind. Unneeded habit. Distantly, he wondered how long it’d take for habits like these to fade away, but at recalling the centuries many of his predecessors had spent in this place he quickly shoved this distressing notion into the back closet of his mind. He’d address that elephant in the room later. Much… later.

One day, just one day without a double dose of existential crisis, that’s all he wanted. Wow, it’s almost depressing how low the bar was.

Draal moved Jim’s small hands off his stone skin, breaking their embrace. His expression shone with genuine affection, but also a lingering sense of duty.

“Nevertheless, it in the past. Now is not the time to mourn what could have been, not when there’s still a battle to be fought.”

“He’s right,” Deya spoke up from behind them. “Deep beneath Arcadia’s streets, while the trollhunter trains under moonlight, the dark magic grow stronger with each minute that passes. We can sense it.”

“Morgana,” spoke a distant, stray soul in a mournful baritone, flitting about around them in a flickering azure haze.

“Morgana!”

“Morgana is free.”

“The Pale Lady!”

He swallowed hard. The reminder of the eldritch witch who’d tormented his friends only served to heighten his anxiety, festering like an incurable itch in his overactive mind. Another soul moved in haste right past his ear. He bit back a yelp as he flinched, dodging it. Its whispers were fervent, in rhyme, teetering on the edge of madness:

“She returns in haste and fury,
Clad in emerald without light!
Crystal’s flame will burn no longer,
Snuffed out by Eternal Night-“

Deya lifted a hand towards this restless spirit. “Peace, Heliosa, peace. I promise, our hour of glory will soon come.”

Heliosa’s cryptic whispers abated at her words. Her spectral form grew still, hovering in the space between Draal and Jim. It seemed she didn’t plan on manifesting fully like the others, however. Odd. He scoured his mind as he gawked at the spherical light, trying to test if his knowledge could place a face to her name, but he came up blank. History lessons in Blinky’s library felt so achingly distant now. All those lazy evenings between missions spent in the warmth and familiarity of Trollmarket… the nights Aaarrrgghh let Claire and him lean against his back as he rested, and how his mane of hair always engulfed them… Toby, twisting the amulet’s antiquated translations of A Brief Recapitulation into endless puns… the in-joke he shared with Blinky once upon a time, with their running tally of the (rare) occasions they caught Vendel smiling…

His features softened at the rush of fond memories.

“-may recall from Blinkous’ many, many lectures, is one of the most spiritually attuned trollhunters, and-“

Hold on, when exactly did Kanjigar start talking again?

“Wait, wait, wait,” he spluttered, holding up a hand. The elder trollhunter paused, peering at him with pursed lips. “Sorry, what? I, uh- I kinda blanked out there a bit. Sorry,” he repeated, desperately ignoring the slight embarrassed crack in his voice.

Draal titled closer to whisper in his ear, or at least as close to a whisper his bombastic friend could manage. “My father was introducing you to Heliosa the Harbinger.” He gestured towards the soul still hovering between them, its inner light pulsing at a heartbeat’s pace.

“Oh!” Distantly wondering if there was any way to save this conversation, he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. God, he might as hell have stuffed them in his mouth. “Uh- hello. I’m… Jim. Jim Lake Junior. Although you probably all know that already, so-“

Deya bestowed him a thin, pitying smile. “Be aware, she’s become a troll of few words within the past decade or so. Today is quite the rarity.”

“Hence why we’re introducing her,” his immediate predecessor nodded. “She only speaks in verse. You’ll soon grow used to it.”

Heliosa, still manifesting as a burst of spherical energy, began to dance in unpredictable corkscrews around the small gathering. The display left him mesmerized, gaze obediently following the faint trail of her glow like a cat’s paw to a pen light. Once more she spoke, her willowy voice laced with an unquestionable arcane authority:

“I foresaw the choice of Merlin,
Knew the Lake of fate’s design,
Centuries prior, time predicted
Hunter born of humankind.
Born of flesh, remade forthright
Daylight’s child chained by night
By wizard’s magic forged anew
To eclipse Darkness with their might.”

The three trolls standing beside him gawked— Deya and Kanjigar in noticeable awe— clearly not expecting such a vocal presence from this trollhunter of old today. However, where their reaction brought pleasant surprise, all he felt was… well, the only way he could think to describe it was as a sort of reverse dread. His brow creased, her prophetic truth leaving him hollow. It stripped him bare, like a pumpkin with all its guts scooped out. With a spoon. He found the mere idea that destiny wove the threads of everything he’d experienced— that despite his many gambles and unpredictable strategies she’d led him by the hand to this very moment unhindered by chance— deeply uncomfortable. If fate really was his master, then… then he must be nothing. A minuscule, predestined knot in life’s tapestry. A mere pawn, his choices be damned.

Not that he ever had one to begin with.

He felt his spectral form collapse into a dense pinprick of light, perhaps to match how tiny he truly felt.

“I- sorry, excuse me,” he breathed, genuinely not knowing if he’d said these words aloud or if they merely existed as an echo within his mind.

Everything revealed since he awoke here suddenly becoming too much for Jim to process at once, he pulled himself away, immediately taking to floating as if second nature. The presence of Draal and all the others grew smaller and smaller as he sank further into the shadows of their metaphysical forge.

Betrayed, by destiny…

Confused.

Alone.

So, so alone.

I have to finish the fight! Alone...

If you walk out that door, you will die!

What choice do I have?

Oh there’s always a choice. Run away, save your skin!

My amulet does not make mistakes…

Despite whatever doubts you may have, it is now bonded to you. This is a mantle you cannot refuse.

I thought you said I had a choice!

I care, I do! I just see the bigger picture...

Your humanity is not enough, you are not enough!

In order for Merlin’s magic to work, something had to be left behind.

...

So what am I, then?

“Jim.”

Ambient noise emanating from the dull thrum of the forge became all but absent at the call. Impossibly stubborn and not desiring visitors in his current state of distress, he shifted his presence further into the shadow.

He was being stupid, he knew. The voice calling was clearly Draal’s. Why the hell was he hiding from Draal? And after all they’d experienced together...

As he tried to evade him, he bumped directly into a solid, warm surface instead. Living stone, life energy pulsing beneath. He felt a hand swipe towards him and he dodged. At this point he genuinely didn’t know if it was out of reflex or because he actually wanted to avoid his friend.

“Jim,” he repeated, stressing his name. “Look at me.”

Even if the only stimuli he could truly intake right now in this form was sound and touch, he swore he sensed the moment he himself pulsed with light, matching the wave of annoyance cresting within his mind.  

“In case you haven’t noticed, I kinda can't do that right now,” he shot back.

“I do not mean-“ Draal sighed, the rough sound betraying his otherwise calm facade and revealing his concern. “Look with your soul, not your eyes.”

Despite his current cynicism towards everything in the universe, he gathered his wits and began to focus in on himself. Soul, not eyes. Soul, not eyes. Puzzling, and infuriating. He had no physical form, how on earth was he supposed to—

Oh. Oh. That’s new, he thought, feeling the slight pricking of another consciousness against his own. The consciousness’ shape intrinsically matched with what he knew of Draal, like how one might recognize someone by scent or the timbre of a voice.

“Ah, so you’ve found it. As you can sense now, we exhibit a different kind of sight here.”

“What… is this?”

“We’re the souls of the dead. How else would souls communicate, without the form granted by the amulet’s binding magic?”

“So. Let me get this straight. Basically, you’re saying the physical Void as I know it only exists through Merlin’s magic?”

He gently hovered beside his presence as Draal paused to consider his next words.

“As far as I’m aware, yes? Do remember,” he said, before Jim could probe for information he apparently didn’t have, “I arrived here mere nights ago. Father has only explained so much.”

“Okay, and about that.”

“About-?”

“You. I- I thought the Void was, y’know. Just for trollhunters. How did you…?”

“It was my father’s doing,” he explained. “At his request the elder trollhunters made an exception for me, against the normal rules. That’s all.”

“Well, I’m glad they did,” Jim said softly. “If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that some rules are worth breaking.”

“Some, yes.”

The troll’s presence pulsed with genuine warmth against his soul’s own. He wondered, if he had capacity for sight right now, if he’d see his friend smiling.

“Now tell me, flesh bag. What distresses you at this hour?”

His heart skipped a beat. Well, if he still had a heart, it would’ve skipped a beat. (Language technicality was going to be the death of him here.) In lieu of working organs, he was pretty sure his soul did about the equivalent.

“I’m fine now, really,” he hastily attempted to cover up.

Draal was absolutely not having it.

“Hmm. Interesting.”

“Wh- what is?”

“Your strange definition of ‘fine.’ You ran away, and then hid in the shadow for twenty minutes.”

“Uh- okay, okay. Fine. Or, or,” he stuttered, “not fine, I mean. Just…. there’s a lot to unpack. That’s all.”

“Are you planning to elaborate, or leaving me to ponder forever?”

Jim lapsed into momentary silence again as he considered. Draal was only wanting to help. He knew this. Also, where once his worry was vulnerability, now he literally had nothing left to lose.

“Well for one,” he eventually began, biting sarcasm coating his words, “I’m dead. I killed myself, and now I’m stuck here with a bunch of- of moody former trollhunters for all of eternity. And then. And then! Apparently, it sounds like every day of my life was bound by some divine destiny, or whatever. And I was fine with that, at first, with the idea of destiny. Because I thought-“ the emotion he’d been stifling began cracking through his level headed facade- “I don’t know! I thought it was something I could control. I thought that the amulet chose me for who I was. For being... special, as stupid and selfish as that sounds. But all of this was prophecy, Draal! It was always meant to happen! So what’s the point in it specifically picking me if I was just a pawn to fate all along? And not only that, but one of my predecessors literally knew Merlin was gonna blindside me with all this half-troll business and do they ever consider giving me, you know, a little heads-up? No!”

“It was only a prophecy.”

“Yeah, well it was a prophecy about me! I would’ve wanted to know. Maybe if I had more time, i-if I had the foreknowledge, could actually think on it before just- God, this was all such a mistake!” he cried. He could sense his spectral form growing cold and dim, only suspended by a single thread.

Draal’s consciousness brushed against his in what might have been his attempt at a metaphysical pat on the back.

“You miss your friends,” he observed.

Jim considered levying him a snarky ‘no duh’ in response, but his soul was too weary for sarcasm right now. Instead, with a little focus and a shimmer of daylight, he manifested himself physically once more and wrapped his arms around the one true friend he had left. He pressed his forehead against his chest.

Draal lowly huffed through his nostrils, slowly returning the embrace. While the fierce troll would never admit it, Jim knew from the hours spent fighting by his side that he cared far more than one might assume. Most of the ‘tough guy’ act he exuded was precisely that: a facade. Draal was actually fairly sentimental, and more soft-hearted than a lot of other trolls he knew. (He’d kept a few knick knacks gifted to him by his father in the basement.) If Jim ever brought it up he’d probably throw him in a headlock, though. Some things never change.

“They won’t ever- they don’t know I’m dead,” he said, words sticking in his throat. “They’ll never know, ‘cause to them I’m not-! I-I… can never see them, ever again.”

“I understand.”

He stood there leaning against his friend in relative silence for a time, his breath shaky as he allowed the rest of the emotion coursing through him like an avalanche to gradually dissipate. Draal didn’t budge an inch, still resolute in his duty to support the trollhunter. The smallest of smiles broke through his anguish at this thought, curving across his face. He was so grateful for that.

“Blinky,” he began, small and hesitant, as he pulled away from their hug. “He always said that destiny… that it’s a gift. Thing is, it really doesn’t feel like one right now.”

“Would you like my input, Trollhunter?”

He met Draal’s eyes, the troll peering into his in such a knowing way that it almost made him squirm. “S-sure. Go wild. I’d take anything at this point.”

“You’ve chosen to define the sum of your life as the destination every action leads you towards. But have you considered that perhaps… what matters isn’t where, but how?”

“I’m not following, sorry.”

“Destiny may guide you, act as a beacon for days to come. But in the moment, you decide how you react to the challenges life throws at you. That choice is yours, and yours alone.”

“Oh, great,” Jim muttered, a sour cynicism corroding his tone. “Helpful. So life may suck, but hey! At least I can approach it with a smile!”

“No. That is not what I mean. What happens in the moment has far more impact than you realize, Jim. Consider me, for instance,” he explained, jabbing a finger solidly against his chest. “You chose to spare my life in our duel. A single life. Do you really think the elders’ vague prophecy could’ve ever predicted a young human having the courage to break entirely from tradition, to forge his own path? I wouldn’t be here right now without your intervention. Your camaraderie, and your friendship. Every action— even the smallest— creates ripples, Trollhunter. Do not be so quick to forget that.”

At this reminder, the hollowing of his chest receded, his anxieties ceasing to eat away at him so quickly. Draal was absolutely right. Even moving through the patterns of fate, he still exhibited a great deal of agency. Even within the framework of a game he didn’t create, he possessed the capacity for free will. His grim assumptions earlier were wrong. He wasn’t somebody’s pawn, he was the hand strategically moving the pawn.

Nevertheless, a pang of melancholy ran cold like a shiver through the bones of old he once possessed. At the edge of war, he sure hoped his living counterpart realized this too.

“So… what do we do now?” he said. “Not like, about the battle,” he clarified hastily, “but. Just in general? It’s way too quiet here. I could do with some sparring, or something.”

Mischief glinted in his friend’s eyes.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Blue clashed against blue in a myriad of sparks, the magic that held together their physical forms flickering like television static each time they struck a hit. Jim Lake Jr. grinned as he leapt clear of the latest attack. Draal, compressed into a dense ball and unable to slow himself down, continued rolling up the side of the practice ring and clear into the rafters. Somewhere far above, the troll condensed himself to light and all but dissapeared.

“Hah, missed me!” Jim shouted in triumph, backing a few steps up as he scoped the area. His fingers wrapped ever tighter around the hilt of his sword. “Still one hit ahead of you. Y'know, my offer to play easy is still on the- Whoa!"

He manifested his shield in one hand just as his friend, chuckling boisterously, appeared from thin air and swung a playful punch at him. Even in the Void, the contact shot dull vibrations all the way up his arm.

"Not a chance, novice! Tied!" Draal countered, and immediately tucked himself into a ball again. The rumbles of his movement across the stone reverberated powerfully throughout the vast halls.

“What in the name of-!“  

Uh-oh. 

Jim almost regressed back into his spectral state himself right then and there, the surprise of the elder trollhunter's voice merely the cherry on top after Draal's sneak attack. His form flickered as he returned Daylight to its mount on his back.

“Oh, Kanjigar!” he said, plastering an innocent smile on his face. Draal rolled to a stop in between them, looking equally as sheepish. “Are you here to, uh- to spar too?”

The elder trollhunter pressed his palm against the ridge of his forehead. “Am I here to- no!  No, of course I am not! We do not wage battle in the harmony of the Void! And Draal, you too?” he exclaimed, widely gesturing at his son. “Must both of you make a mockery of this sacred space?”

Without so much as a second thought, Draal pointed at Jim. “It was his idea.”

“Hey, excuse me!” he hissed at him under his breath, embarrassment growing evident in his posture. That rat! He bailed him out, and in front of one of the greatest trollhunters to live, no less. Still, Kanjigar  was  his father, (and Jim couldn’t imagine ever lying to Blinky, himself), so he supposed he’d have to excuse the betrayal. He sighed deeply, and leveled his gaze towards the great troll with a demeanor of assured confidence only a fellow trollhunter would ever dare summon. “With respect, I’ve only been here for like, barely an hour, if that, and I’m already dying of boredom.”

Kanjigar blinked, utterly failing to capture the deeper meaning of his words. “I’m afraid I don’t follow. By all measures you’ve already died, Jim.

“I know that I’m-“ he groaned, carding his fingers through his hair. “Never mind, it’s- it’s just a figure of speech. My point is, I’m not gonna just float about the ether and armchair quarterback every single little fight my other self has like you, okay? I- I need something to do. Something that won’t be stressful as hell."

"What, like sparring? Sparring is not customary here."

"Why?"

Draal huffed in annoyance, and began to hollowly recite words his father had likely imparted when he first arrived. "Because the Void is a peaceful domain wherein trollhunters should seek the calming pursuits they never had opportunity to give thought to in life. Supposedly."

"We do not wage battle because our lives were a battle, young trollhunter," Kanjigar stated simply.

"But that's not fair, it's calming for me!"

He pondered on this fact as the words passed his lips, upon reflection surprised at how accurate they were. He'd actually grown to look forward to his training sessions with Blinky or Draal, back before the loss of Trollmarket. They were routine, ever-evolving, and functioned as wonderful stress relief. Many a day he'd spent letting his frustrations out on the forge machinery after a bad Spanish or algebra exam.

“Wow," he said under his breath, mostly to himself. "That's actually true, it really is. Huh. Crazy how much can change in a few months. But!" He lifts a finger for emphasis, talking directly to the others once more. "As I was saying."

"Yes, do continue," Kanjigar said, peering between him and Draal with narrowed eyes. He crossed his arms, thoroughly unimpressed. 

Jim's hand moved to cover the amulet, hanging directly over the space his heart once occupied. He glossed his thumb across its rim. "I guess... the crux of the matter is, certain customs of the troll world had to change when the amulet picked a human. And now, with part of me dead, it’s the Void’s turn. I'll keep my distance from everyone else while sparring for courtesy's sake, but for the record, it makes me happy. I don't aim to stop."

And with that bold statement, he let his armor fade into light. The expression of dumfounded shock that crossed that old troll's stony face in response was almost enough to make him audibly bark in laughter for the first time today. He pocketed the amulet, and walked past his elder.

"You coming?" he said, gesturing to Draal. "I thought I'd explore around a bit more."

"Count me in."

“I heard you shouting in the distance. Tell me- what did I miss?” Deya asked as Kanjigar returned to the others.

“Nothing important,” he groused. “Only Lake and my son desecrating every rule they happen to lay their eyes on.”

She tilt her head at him, in a matter-of-fact sort of way. The knowing smile she presented— top row of sharpened, squarish teeth showing between her lips— whisked him back to the time when he the foolish youth called by the amulet, and she was one of his elders. Long, long ago.

“They’re sparring, aren’t they?”

“Exactly! And as dictated, the Void is a place of eternal peace. A peace that currently, they’re uprooting by way of their irresponsible foolishness!”  

Deya’s laugh rang out as clear as a bell. “Oh, lighten up, you old misery,” she teased, swinging a punch at Kanjigar’s shoulder. “To hell with the rules. It's perfectly harmless, sparing here. Let the youth have their fun.”