Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was something sacred about the passage of time.  Whether it be the ticking of a clock or the languid swimming of shadows against the grass as the sun rises to the center of the sky, time left a trail.  The way the sky darkened as night fell, only for stars to explode from the abyss, painted a beautiful, unmistakable picture of home.  Of comfort.  Of time.

Jim could no longer recognize the passage of time.

He’d tried to account for the days when he first entered the Darklands, but that quickly proved impossible.  As the name suggested, this realm beneath the earth opened like a void, swallowing any traces of light that might’ve slipped through the cracks.  Jim found himself thinking of the old Greek tragedy of Hades and Persephone (he’d had to read it for his freshman year English course) and wondered if the young girl who had been snatched from her mother ever peeked through the cracks of dirt and roots and darkness… searching for the tiniest glimpse of home.

And while Jim certainly didn’t see himself as Persephone, it was difficult not to feel attached to the idea of her, in some way.  She’d persevered, hadn’t she?  Despite everything, she’d carried on.  She didn’t even have half of the advantages Jim currently had, and she’d survived.  The young Trollhunter told himself that must have been a sign of hope, but his brain was quick to counteract such a foolish notion.  The myth of Hades and Persephone was just that: a myth.  An old tragedy passed around for thousands of years.  Even if it had been true, Persephone might have been able to relate to Jim’s imprisonment and hopelessness, but that would be all.  She did not have a sacred obligation to uphold.  She did not have Gunmar, the embodiment of true darkness, breathing down her neck.  She did not find herself entombed in a cell made of stone, spiked gems that looked like jaws keeping Jim trapped inside.

Jim shifted where he sat in the far corner of his cell, his body instantly protesting the action.  The trolls down here seemed to understand that water was a necessity for humans, but food could be withheld for longer periods of time.  Along with his growing fatigue and joint pain, Jim’s armor — once acting as a protective barrier — now felt more like weights keeping him pinned to the floor.  The enchanted quality of the steel kept it melded to his form, and while the young Trollhunter understood he should be grateful for it, he wished desperately to be rid of its confines.

Maybe it had been only a few days.  Maybe it had been longer.  Jim had no way of telling, and his growing dejection wasn’t exactly a good sign, either.  He thought back to Killahead Bridge, and the portal that had opened up for him to pass through… the portal to go back home… only for it to be destroyed from the other side.  He recalled the weight of the child in his arms, the baby’s desperate wailing a cause for both alarm and action.

Jim heard Claire screaming for him on the other side of the portal, begging some unseen force to “Wait!  Wait, he’s right there!”

He’d thought, in that moment of poor foresight and high blood pressure, that if one of them was going to get through the portal, it was going to be Claire’s baby brother.  In an earth-shattering collapse and a cloud of oppressive dust, the weight of baby Enrique’s little body dissipated entirely as he was passed back to the real world—back to Claire —and Jim heard her scream for him one final time before the bridge was dismantled.

His one shot to get back home.

Ripped from him.

The trolls in Gunmar’s army had been quick to surround the young Trollhunter, and try as he might, his exhaustion had kept him from putting up a valiant fight.  They’d thrown him in this cell, where he’d remained for… however long he’d been locked up, only leaving in brief intervals to “entertain” the Dark Lord himself.

When Jim had first come face to face with Gunmar, he’d been stunned into silence.  The creature was a goliath of dark stone, his eye burning a hole directly through the Trollhunter’s chest.  The boy had assumed he’d be killed right then and there, seeing as Gunmar had no reason to keep him alive, and the creature already had a vendetta against Jim.

Killing the Dark Lord’s only son didn’t exactly win him any cool points.

Of course, however, it couldn’t be that simple.  Nothing ever was.  Not anymore.  No, Gunmar still had an agenda: get to the surface, destroy humanity, and rule the earth under an eternal eclipse.  To do that, he needed the portal.  To slip through the portal, he needed the bridge to be rebuilt .  To ensure the bridge would be rebuilt, he needed the boy.

Alive, much to his dismay.

If his friends were still searching for him, then Gunmar and his men would not even have to lift a finger.  The bumbling fools would rebuild the bridge themselves, if only to get their precious Trollhunter back.  The Dark Lord prayed for the day he could watch their faces turn ashen as they witnessed the boy take his final breath.

So, despite how badly Gunmar wished to sever the young Trollhunter’s head from his shoulders, he showed restraint.  Decorum , or perhaps something as close as he could manage.  He would not kill the boy.  But he would make him suffer.

Every day Jim was Gunmar’s prisoner, he felt himself growing more and more drained.  Every day, Jim was forced into the Dark Lord’s arena, fighting monsters he couldn’t hope to fathom outside of this waking nightmare.  He felt like part of his soul was decaying.  Every day, when he inevitably collapsed from exhaustion and awoke sometime later back in his cell, Jim thought of his friends.  His family .  He thought of his home back in Arcadia Oaks.

He thought about how everyone must have hated him.

The boy wasn’t sure how long he’d last down here, with how things were currently going.  He was only being given enough food to stay alive, most of his diet consisting of water.  The isolation was eating away at him—Nomura could only provide so much as a conversationalist—and the constant sparring for Gunmar’s entertainment only served to make his overexhausted body even more offended.

But the worst part was that Jim didn’t care.

He didn’t care if he died down here, as horrible as that sounded.  He no longer found it within himself to dream of a future in which he escaped.  He couldn’t even visualize past the walls of his cell anymore.  The young Trollhunter allowed himself this time to be selfish and to despair, because right now, he didn’t have to carry the world on his shoulders.  Right now, he didn’t have ten million different tasks, or people to save, or magic to conjure.  Right now, he was alone.  He was alone, and he would remain alone, so he figured he had the right to be selfish, even if it was just in his mind.

Even if he never verbalized the fact that he hoped he would die down here.  Even if he never actually admitted that he’d prefer Gunmar go ahead and end him.

God, he was horrible.  He was horrible, and he knew he was horrible, but he was also a sixteen-year-old boy.  And sixteen-year-old boys were allowed to be horrible, weren’t they?  They were allowed to be pissy.  They were allowed to get into trivial arguments with their parents.  They were allowed to skip a class or two.  Jim was allowed those things, wasn’t he?

Kids his age didn’t have to fight monsters on a daily basis.  Kids his age didn’t have to wield a magical sword made of daylight, and they didn’t have to save the world from terrifying nightmare creatures living underground.  Kids his age probably hadn’t been mauled, or struck by lightning, or thrown, or kicked, or hit so hard that their ribs snapped.  They probably didn’t have to consider their own mortality.  They probably didn’t have to act as a gladiator for the Dark Lord rotting beneath the earth.

No, all of that was saved for Jim.

The boy didn’t realize there were tears burning the corners of his eyes until one of them escaped, falling from his cheek and splatting against the dirtied metal of his armor.  Jim blinked a few times, swiping the dreadful emotions away.  He couldn’t afford them.  Not right now.  Not ever.

The young Trollhunter’s shoulders tensed as he heard the familiar sounds of heavy footsteps making their way towards his cell.  He sniffled, swallowing the sob that had been so desperate to escape his throat.

He certainly couldn’t afford any tears in front of Gunmar, and he was about to have an audience with him.

Chapter Text

To lose a son was to have one’s forlorn soul cleaved from their very chest.  To awaken every day with the understanding that the child you brought up no longer inhabited the same world as you made hell seem preferable.  To burn in the fires meant to be condemned, and to be condemned meant to feel.

Blinky could not feel.

He did the best he could, all things considered, to save face.  He busied himself with research, with reading, with problem-solving.  If he could piece together the little things, they'd eventually stack up.  They'd make big things, and Blinky would just as well solve the big things in order to bring his boy back from the Darklands.

It had been two months since Killahead Bridge was destroyed.  Two months since baby Enrique was delivered home without so much as a scratch.  Two months of radio silence from the Amulet of Daylight.  Two months without Jim.  For the sake of Tobias, the Trollhunter's best friend, and Claire, the young woman Jim fancied, Blinky remained steadfast.  He did not so much as falter in appearances, lest they see how horribly the troll was holding up.  His library was his only solace, and even then, it didn't offer much.  More questions than answers, most days, and without Jim by his side, asking him nearly incessant inquiries about troll lore and history, Blinky did not find half as much joy in the act of skimming pages as he once did.

Argh, Blinky's most beloved companion stood encased in stone in the corner of his library.  After Trollmarket's battle with Angor Rot leaving Argh and so many others encased in stone, Blinky had refused to leave his mate alone.  Perhaps it was denial, or perhaps it was his own sick way of coming to terms with the brutish troll's death, but Blinky hadn't rested until Argh's body—a statue of fear and desperation—was gingerly placed within the walls of his library.

Argh was never much of a bookworm, but Blinky knew he loved him, anyway.  Given the opportunity, if things had turned out differently, he knew Argh would have chosen to stay in the library for as long as Blinky was there.

That brought the distressed troll some level of comfort, though not much.  The room was still silent.  Trollmarket was unusually solemn.  The Hero's Forge hadn't been active since the Trollhunter's disappearance.  Blinky looked up from his book and towards the entrance of his library, his eyes landing on an otherwise small hunk of steel that rested listlessly against the wall.  A dull blue 1955 Vespa, whose owner's helmet could still be seen tossed over the handlebars.

Blinky recalled how Jim had reacted upon receiving those parts on his sixteenth birthday.  He could remember watching the tension leave the boy's shoulders, witnessing a hesitant smile pulling at the corner of the young Trollhunter's lips.  Never in his entire life had he ever imagined building a Vespa from the ground up with a human child for company, but Blinky found it to be one of his most treasured memories now.

He hated the way the seat had collected dust.  Hated the way the helmet now looked so useless, so impersonal.   Blinky hated looking at the thing, but he'd be damned if he ever trashed it.  He could not.   He was unscrupulously bound to the items and the people he loved most... he could not let anyone go.

He refused.

Closing his book with a sigh, Blinky pushed the useless hunk of dead tree aside.  He brought his hands up to rub his eyes, forcing the weariness from his pupils and the dark, hopeless thoughts from his mind.  Tobias and Claire would likely arrive soon, and they'd need him refurbished and refreshed to start researching ways to bring Jim back and restore Killahead Bridge.  For now, however, alone and surrounded only by ghosts, Blinky was free to exist in his numbness.

He looked down at his desk, eyes scanning mutely over the Amulet of Daylight before reaching out to take it between his fingers.  It was adorned with a few scratches, but otherwise intact.  Blinky ran a thumb across the front, a bitterness so deep that it nearly crippled him purging every other waking thought.  He wasn't sure if the souls of the other Trollhunters were witnessing any of this, and he did not care.

Blinky gripped the item with all of the strength he had, his arms trembling with rage.

"Bring him back," he forced out, his voice hardly reaching above a whisper.  "Bring my boy back."

Chapter Text

Jim was never an avid Lovecraft reader.  He always figured the audience that man was searching for was much older and much wiser to the horrors of this world and the next.  Perhaps, too, it was the lack of action that seemed to drown H.P. Lovecraft's works into disinterest, at least for the young Trollhunter.  Now, however, the creature he was facing in Gunmar's arena could not be described as anything other than Lovecraftian.

Trolls and changlings, as fantastical as they were, were still tangible.  They were feasible threats—or feasible friends—and they could be dealt with accordingly.  The Darklands, Jim had come to learn, was not short on any hellish deformations, all of which sought his blood for themselves.  They passed the threshold from fantastical to eldritch, and the young Trollhunter had not been prepared for that in the slightest.

Jim gracelessly dodged another strike from the massive snake-like creature he was currently fighting, tripping over himself and skidding to the ground with a painful ‘THUD.’  He could hear Gunmar’s booming laughter as he watched the spectacle from his throne above the arena, and coupled with the gut-wrenching rumbling of the ground beneath the young Trollhunter’s feet, Jim feared he might go deaf.  His heart was beating erratically against his ribs, feeling as though it were going to burst completely, and Jim had just enough time to pick himself up off the ground and stagger to the right before he could be impaled by the end of this monster’s barbed tail.  He braced himself against the wall, his sword feeling way too heavy in his trembling hands, and stole a glance back towards his opponent.

The snake creature hissed and spat the most horrific sounds, twisting and rolling and snapping its fangs as the boy evaded its attack.  Gunmar was yelling something, either to the creature or Jim, but he couldn’t discern what it was.  Nothing good, certainly.

This was infuriating.  The Dark Lord was certainly keeping Jim alive on purpose, but he was also making no attempt to ensure his safety.  The boy could not understand his end goal.  One of these days, he wouldn’t be able to fight anymore.  Gunmar had to have known that.

Jim’s opponent let out another deafening wail, recentering its gaze on its target and darting towards him.  The boy straightened, his body coiled like a spring as he watched the thing approach.  If he could just get on top of it, somehow…  He could only assume so much about the creature, but most living things had an aversion to being impaled through the top of their skull.  If this thing even had a skull.  Only one way to find out.

It took more energy than he would've cared to admit, but Jim managed to dodge another brutish attack from his aggressor.  He struck with as much force as his exhausted sixteen-year-old body could muster, embedding the blade of his sword into the side of the creature's face, just below its eye.  Swinging his body up, he maneuvered on top of the thrashing monster's flat head, grabbing at its massive scales to keep himself steady as the dreadful thing began to thrash desperately.

Gunmar called out again—some sort of Trollish curse Jim recognized because of Blinky—and he figured it was a good sign, at the very least, that he was managing to cause the Dark Lord some form of distress.  Jim gritted his teeth, stabilized himself atop the screeching demon, and thrust the blade of his sword down, splitting scale and flesh and muscle, listening as the beast's head ripped with an almost grating sound.  Black ichor sprayed from the abrasion, coating Jim's blade and armor with the thick, inky substance.  He managed to dislodge his sword and roll off the creature's wailing skull, unable to pull himself to his feet once his body collapsed to the hard earth.

The ground rumbled and shook, and the snake beast howled and screeched for a good thirty seconds before finally relinquishing its pitiful hold on the living realm.  With a crestfallen croon, the monster collapsed with a deafening 'BAM' , dust and rubble briefly swallowing the dead thing in a plume of finality, before floating listlessly back down to the ground.

The arena went deathly silent, though Jim couldn't discern that.  The ringing in his ears was only coupled with the sound of his heart beating painfully in his chest, and his head was pounding.  There was nothing silent about the anguished cries of his own body.

He thought, briefly, of his mother.  He thought about whether or not she'd noticed his disappearance.  He thought about how long he'd been gone... how long had he been gone..?  God, he didn't know.  Jim was suddenly painfully aware of the hot tears welling up in his eyes.  His body was so exhausted... so fucking exhausted... and he just wanted his mom.  He wanted to curl up in her lap, and he wanted her to run her fingers through his hair.  He wanted to cry like a child and have her whisper reassurances in his ear.

Jim didn't care how useless or weak those thoughts made him feel.  How could he?  He didn't have the strength to rise to his knees.   The oppressive footsteps of Gunmar's soldiers were growing closer, and Jim wasn't sure if they planned on giving him a pummeling or if they'd take it easy on him and just toss him back in his cell.  He supposed it didn't matter.  His body was going to be protesting regardless, and he was fairly certain he was already on the verge of passing out.

He was only half-aware when a pair of strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and began dragging him out of the arena.  Gunmar could be heard spewing curses like some mad god, and Jim couldn't help but feel a little proud of himself.  Who knew a teenage boy would be the thing that sent the Dark Lord over the edge?

He concurred there would be no pummeling today when his body soon made contact with the cold ground of his cell, and the crystals clamped back down along the entrance, trapping him once more.  As miserable as this was, it was preferred.  At least now, Jim could simply let himself drift off for as long as his body deemed necessary.  Or as long as Gunmar allowed.   Either or.  It was certainly better than the alternative.

Jim gathered his remaining strength and curled up in the furthest corner of the cell.  No, it wasn't very 'Trollhunter-y,' and up until now, if anyone had seen him in such a state of disarray, he'd have been humiliated.  He didn't have the space to feel ashamed anymore.  Not mentally, not physically, and certainly not emotionally.  His whole body seemed to throb with each aching thump of his heart, and his eyelids fluttered shut as the exhaustion ran its course.

The boy tried not to think about how badly he'd let his friends down.  How badly he'd let his family down.  He tried desperately not to remember the sounds of their broken voices when he'd decided to venture into the Darklands alone.  He pushed back any thought of a possible rescue... he found those thoughts only brought more harm than good.

He wasn't going to get out, and that was okay.  At least, that's what Jim kept repeating to himself.  He wasn't going to get out, because there was no 'out' he could escape to.  It was better for him to believe that he'd always been in the Darklands and that this would always continue to be his life until one day he died like a horse from exhaustion.  If Jim could trick himself into believing he didn't have a life outside of this hellscape, then it would hurt less the longer he stayed.  It would mean every time he envisioned his friends and family, they'd become misty.  It would mean that, at the very least, he could skip out on the heartache of it all.

Jim felt his mind slowly seeping like blood from his ears, consciousness deciding that he'd clung to its coattails for far too long.  The young Trollhunter felt the remainder of his energy seep from his bones as he deflated against the floor, and he swallowed the urge to sob.  It wouldn't do him any good.  Jim couldn't do much as his body finally shut down, and he was reduced to nothing but a torpid thing beneath the earth.

Chapter Text

She’d braved the ocean.

By Deya’s grace, Claire had braved the ocean to retrieve the fragments of Killahead Bridge.

Blinky wasn’t surprised, exactly.  Claire had proven herself time and time again as a valuable comrade to both Jim and the trolls living beneath Arcadia.  She’d certainly mastered the Shadow Staff with a speed and precision that Blinky had never considered possible.  He had learned to expect the unexpected when it came to humans, however.  They often found ways to exceed his expectations.

They’d certainly done more in the last two months than any other troll had to help find a way to retrieve Master Jim from the Darklands.  Truly, Blinky had never felt more disappointed in his flesh and blood in his entire life than he did during the Trollhunter’s absence.  That boy had fought tooth and nail for them countless times.  He’d answered every call, even if said ‘call’ consisted of fighting off rogue gnomes or delivering magical packages between petty, feuding sisters.  He had killed Bular, the Dark Lord’s son, and still, they thought of him as less.  Still, they disregarded his safety and well-being.  Still, they only saw a boy.

A boy they would all condemn to the Darklands.

Regardless, the fates had decided to grant Jim a modicum of mercy.  Kanjigar the Courageous (though Blinky certainly didn’t hold him in such high regard anymore) had finally decided to use his transcendental influence for the good of the human Trollhunter.  It had taken him two months to do so, but Blinky tried to remind himself that later was better than never… even though it certainly didn’t feel like it.

Jim had talked to Blinky before, in secrecy, about his meetings with the previous Trollhunters.  How their spirits scorned the boy, disregarded his input, and acted as blatant hypocrites.  He’d confided in Blinky, terrified at first that he might’ve been speaking out against some omniscient, sacred council.  Blinky had quickly realized that he cared far more about his boy than he did the opinions and beliefs of supposed gods.

“They said they didn’t… like my friends,” Jim had said after a particularly gruesome chewing-out session from those nauseating spirits.  He’d found Blinky where he usually was, holed away in his library, and the troll had instantly taken notice of the boy’s drawn-out features… the look of shame.  “I don’t disagree that we need to work better as a team, but… to just blatantly disregard Toby?  Claire?  They’re the reason I’m still alive in the first place.”

Blinky remembered a sort of chill ripping up his spine at those words.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Master Jim was insinuating.  Sure, the boy could hold his own in combat.  He could fend for himself, all things considered.  But Tobias and Claire had saved Jim from himself.  They’d kept him alive, even when the pressure had piled up so high the boy could hardly function because of it.  They’d kept him alive by helping him with his homework.  By playing video games, grabbing dinner, catching up on their favorite TV shows.  They’d kept Jim alive this long by allowing him to be who he was: a kid.

“I see,” Blinky had responded patiently.  He’d long since closed his book, pushing it to the side and refocusing all of his attention on the rambling human now pacing his library.

“And I can’t help but feel like I’m being lectured every time I’m called, you know?” Jim had continued, wringing his hands together anxiously.  He’d started doing that recently.  “I’m… haven’t I proven myself, Blink?  I’m not… You don’t think I’m failing at this, do you?”

Blinky had never been close to any of the other Trollhunters.  He’d respected them and their cause, but he’d never gotten to know any of them.  Well, he’d started getting to know Unkar, and then the fool had decided to go and die, and make Blinky look like an idiot for training him.  But for some reason, he’d gotten close to Jim.   The boy had been a cowardly creature at first (and sometimes still was), but he listened to Blinky.  He took his advice.  He stuck to his lessons, he learned, and he survived.   Not only that, but he thrived.   He took his new and unexpected role as Trollhunter with as much strength and dedication as a teenage boy could muster, and he’d fought unabashedly for the lives and well-being of a race of creatures who saw him as unworthy.

So, when that question had left Jim’s mouth, and Blinky had looked up to find the boy’s eyebrows furrowed and his bottom lip wobbling, he’d answered with more force than intended.

“Absolutely not,” he’d said, stepping away from his bookshelf and making his way over to the boy’s side.  “Master Jim, you are excelling.”

Jim hadn’t looked convinced, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other.  He lowered his head as Blinky approached, as if he expected to be reprimanded once more like a disobedient child.  He opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again to speak.  “I just… nothing is ever enough.  I’m not ever…”

“Don’t finish that thought,” Blinky had interjected, gently placing his hands atop the boy’s shoulders.  “You must not surrender yourself to despair.”

“But Kanjigar said-”

“Disregard was Kanjigar said!” Blinky had snapped, feeling something harsh and protective coil in his chest, locking around his ribcage.  The thought of this boy being surrounded by spirits of Trollhunters of the past, having to fend for himself after every single decision he made for the betterment of Trollkind, made Blinky sick .  No, not sick.  Angry .  It made him very, very angry.  Jim had looked nothing short of surprised at his mentor’s unusual outburst, flicking his eyes up to meet Blinky’s gaze.

“You are fairing wonderfully,” Blinky had continued, giving the young Trollhunter’s shoulders a reassuring squeeze.  “Their… advice… or whatever they are deciding to call it, will only carry you so far.  You have survived, Master Jim.  You have felled Bular.  If those old fools seek to disregard that accomplishment of yours because you had help, then I… I-”

“Jeez, Blink…”  Jim’s half-concealed chuckle pulled Blinky out of his heated ranting, and the troll instantly felt his heart soften.  “I didn’t know you could be so rebellious.”

“It’s not… I’m not being- They should be better-”

“I get it, I get it,” Jim assuaged, reaching his hands out to take hold of Blinky’s second pair.  The troll couldn’t fathom how hands so small wielded the Sword of Daylight.  He couldn’t fathom how hands so small could even be chosen, in the first place.  “Thank you, Blink.  It’s… it’s good to hear that from you.”

The sincerity in the young Trollhunter’s voice didn’t exactly catch Blinky off guard, but it did sober him marginally.  “Of course, Master Jim,” he’d responded.  “You… I am very proud of you.”

The look that passed over Jim’s features at that moment solidified itself in Blinky’s mind.  It was the first moment he realized he had much more of an impact on the human Trollhunter than he initially thought.  Jim’s blue eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, his grin vanished, and the tip of his nose flushed a subtle red.  Before Blinky could understand the boy’s reaction, he was being pulled in for a hug, the young Trollhunter’s arms not even reaching all the way around his frame.  Blinky hesitated for a moment before returning the gesture, his massive arms nearly enveloping the boy entirely.  He still remembered the silence that transpired between the two of them.  He still remembered the way Jim’s shoulders trembled when he’d started to cry.

How could the spirits remain dormant?  How could they do nothing for two months while Jim was trapped, and the people who loved him were all scrambling for solutions?  How could Kanjigar disguise his inaction as a test of will?

By commanding Argh be resurrected.  That was how.

Blinky was not opposed to this idea, make no mistake.  He, Claire, and Tobias all made haste in following the spirit’s order to retrieve the antidote for Argh’s stony affliction.  It took quite a bit of stealth, and finesse, and kidnapping, and borderline-torture, and bartering, but eventually, the antidote was given to them by the Janus Order.  Blinky remembered thinking how impossible it was for such a tiny step forward to feel so monumental.  In his hands lay the antidote to cure Argh, to bring him back.  It was a key to whatever primordial playing field they were about to step onto, and Blinky had made quick work of returning to a dull, uninspired Trollmarket in order to get his mate back.  

The antidote had worked, absolutely.  Blinky had gotten about two minutes to reconnect with Argh—who was very upset and very, very confused—before the troll was snatched away from him, again.  This time, as Kanjigar’s vessel.

How was Blinky expected to be grateful?

Orders were given, teams were disbursed, and Blinky had to pretend that this was fine, everything was fine.   As if Master Jim being trapped in the Darklands for this long without assistance wasn’t already bad enough, now Argh was being puppeted around by a pretentious spirit who couldn’t even defeat Bular (Jim defeated Bular), and Claire and Tobias were sent to retrieve fragments of a damned bridge from the bottom of the ocean.

Blinky hardly had the time to panic.  He hardly had the time to do anything other than remain steady.  His team could not afford a man down, and Blinky was not going to cross that threshold.  Even though he wanted to scream every time Kanjigar opened Argh’s mouth to speak.  Even though he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that his mate was trapped somewhere in his own mind, only minutes after being brought back to life.  Even though he found himself obsessively thinking about every possible horrible thing that could be happening to Master Jim right below their feet, he would not break.  He would not falter.  He needed to act as Claire and Tobias’s supporting cast, and he was sure to perform that role to its completion.

He remembered what it felt like entering the Darklands for the first time.  How the steady wind of Arcadia Oaks had disappeared and turned stiff with rot and decay.  How the last vestiges of sunlight had vanished, and the sky along with it.  He remembered how the ground beneath his feet sang with ancient debris, how the souls of those trapped here seemed to wail and claw at them from the cracks of shattered walkways.  Instantly, Blinky wanted to be sick.  The idea that Master Jim—that his boy —had been trapped in this hellish place for so long nearly caused the troll to lock up.  Tobias and Claire seemed steadfast in their pursuit of the Trollhunter, and Argh had been rightfully given access to his body and mind; Kanjigar finally left his vessel to its rightful owner.  The world was cruel, yes, but time was Blinky’s worst enemy.  

He had no time to mourn.  Had no time to rightfully make up for the two months Argh had been declared deceased.  Had no time to cry or hold the bigger troll in his arms.  Had no time for any of it.  Deya forbid, Blinky was exhausted, and as desperate as he was to retrieve the Trollhunter, he also longed to break down.  To comfort and be comforted.  

All he could do was march forward into the abyss, praying to all that was holy that Jim could hold out for just a little while longer.

Chapter Text

Nomura had become Jim’s unlikely acquaintance.

The changeling had been trapped in this prison for about as long as Jim had, and at first, had been nothing but a spiteful reminder of all of his failures.  All of his losses.  She was quick to despair, quick to blame the boy, and hellbent on bringing him to his knees with her words of unrelenting hopelessness.  Her cell was right next to Jim’s, and every day after another battle, he’d be returned in a heap of blood and useless limbs.

After about a month, Nomura’s commentary had dwindled to hesitant ‘Are you okay’s’ and ‘How’s your armor’s’.  She was just as much in dire straits as Jim was; an impure enemy of Gunmar, only kept alive because she could somehow still be used as a tool in his regime.  The young Trollhunter had come to appreciate the glimmers of genuine concern in her voice… had started to treasure anything that wasn’t painful and rough and meant to break him down.

Jim still didn’t trust Nomura.  Not completely.  He could tell she didn’t trust him, either.  It was difficult to break past their constant battles.  Their animosity towards one another.  But soon, that mistrust eroded with the abuse.  They were the only reminders of a world outside of the Darklands.  They were the only reminders that things could be different.  It was as buoyant as it was painful.

Because Jim didn’t want to remember.  He didn’t think Nomura did, either.

Jim felt like his ribs had collapsed by the time he was returned to his cell today.  He’d barely managed to fight his way through Gunmar’s glorified gladiator pit, and with every wheezing breath he took, the boy knew his resolve was weakening.  As was his armor.  His breaths came in short, shallow gasps, a broken sound tearing from his lips as he was tossed haphazardly back to the cold ground.  His chest gave a painful jolt, as if one of his ribs had snapped and lodged itself within his lung.  Tears were flowing freely as he no longer had the strength to suppress them, and a heavy sob bubbled up his throat.

“Little Gynt?” Nomura’s voice echoed from her chamber.  Jim wished he could see her face.  Wished he could tell if the concern she’d been showing these past few weeks had been real, or if it was all for show.  He wouldn’t understand why it would be, but he also didn’t have the energy to connect the petty intricacies of the changeling’s mind.  He opened his mouth to speak, but only a fractured whimper came out.  

Christ, he was shaking so badly…

“How bad?” Nomura asked, and Jim could barely make out the sound of her stepping closer to the wall they shared.

The young Trollhunter could only weep.

Silence ensued for a painfully long time.  Realistically, it had to have only been moments.  Mere seconds, perhaps.

“You will be alright,” the changeling spoke once more, her voice lowering to something so achingly soft.  “Breathe, child.”

Jim was trying.  He was trying so hard.  He didn’t want to breathe anymore.  He didn’t want to be awake anymore.  He wanted to perish so badly his throat constricted around the choking sensation of death.  The magic that held his armor together was humming desperately, trying to stay intact.

“‘Mura…” the young Trollhunter managed, reaching a shaking hand towards the cold stone wall.

“...yes?”

He rested his palm against the obstruction, closing his eyes to try and rein in his emotions.  “‘M so… ‘m so s’rry…”

Jim didn’t entirely know what he was apologizing for.  He just knew his misery was going to kill him before Gunmar ever did, and if he could offer some fleeting sense of solace to the changeling, he’d do just that.

A long moment passed before Nomura spoke again, and when she did, it made the boy’s heart clench.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Jim thought he did.  Ever since the day he’d picked up his stupid amulet, the entire world had started crumbling beneath his feet.  He was forced to fight horrors he’d only ever considered fantastical, and he’d failed time and time again.  He’d let down his friends, put his mother in danger, and lost allies to the Dark Lord.  Maybe he was selfish for apologizing now, when so much damage had already been done.  Maybe he just wanted the words to be spoken aloud to someone, because he knew he’d never get the opportunity to speak them to his friends.

“Little Gynt?”

The boy swallowed the lump in his throat, trying to take slower breaths through his nostrils despite the fact they were clogged with blood.  “Hm..?”

“You must continue to be strong.”

That didn’t sound like Nomura at all.  She’d never been one to so quickly play into his idea of faith.  The changeling had softened, sure, but her worldview hadn’t deviated.  Jim knew she was only saying this to offer some sense of comfort, but even though the words were empty, he couldn’t help but cling to them.

“Your friends are coming.  You’ve said so yourself.”

He sniffled again, hot tears leaking from his eyes and dripping onto the unforgiving ground that cradled him.  “Uh-huh…” he croaked, feeding into the delusion.  The pain in his chest was relentless.  White spots started dancing in front of his vision.  Breathing had become harder.

“You have… allies.  People who care for you.”  A pause.  “I care for you.”

Jim felt like he was being laid to sleep.  There was a solemn totality to Nomura’s voice.  Something that gave no room for agony.  She was doing this for Jim’s sake.  

In case the boy didn’t wake up.

“Will you…” he rasped, shoulders trembling with the weight of his suppressed sobs.  “Will you try… to get out…?”

A beat.

“I will.”

She was lying.  Jim didn’t care anymore.

“An’ tell… my frien’s… I love them…?”

“I will.”  And then, “I promise, Trollhunter.”

It was an empty promise.  It was Jim’s coffin.

The boy closed his eyes with no intention of opening them again.

Chapter Text

Tobias and Claire were the first to find the cells.

Rows of them, damp and dark.

Empty.

Save for one.  Its lack of a body made it no less disturbing; Blinky would have preferred that over what they found.  Blood—both fresh and old—clinging to the empty cage like infection.  Smeared across the walls, the ground… pooled in a heap in the furthest corner of the cell.

Everyone knew who it belonged to.

Trolls did not bleed.  Humans did.

Panic was the first thing that everyone felt.  Panic and denial.  Blinky was swallowed completely by the horrors clawing at his broken mind, the muffled sounds of desperation coming from his friends eventually turning to silence.  There was an overbearing ringing that overtook his hearing, all six eyes trained on the formless brutality that lay before him.

Where was his boy?

Argh had lumbered over to his side.  He’d nudged the side of Blinky’s head with his snout.  He’d tried to brush up against him, offer his mate some sort of comfort.  Blinky was numb to it.

The distant clashing of steel was the only thing that tore Blinky out of his haze.  Everyone jerked their heads in the direction of the violent noise, made even more apparent by the removed chanting that seemed to echo through the Darklands.

“Do you think…?” Tobias began, only to cut himself off.  The air in the room became thin.  Nobody dared to breathe.  Heard above the clashing of weapons and the screeching of devils, was screaming.

Anguished, perennial screaming.

And they all recognized its voice.

“Jim…” Claire exhaled before darting in the direction of the young Trollhunter.

The group had no plan.  They couldn’t fight off a colosseum of monstrosities, no matter how strong-willed they were.  But desperation had over-ridden their need for a plan.  Two months without their Trollhunter and best friend had made them manic.  Caution would get them nowhere.  Blinky had never felt such fierce madness in his life, he could safely say.  The scream Jim had let out gutted the troll, tearing him open and exposing the long-concealed parts of his heart.  They could not allow him to die.

Not the Trollhunter.

Not his son.

Chapter Text

Much to his dismay, Jim had woken up.

He’d woken up to the sound of fighting; Nomura’s voice spitting ancient curses at the brutes who were removing her from her cell.  Jim was soon to follow, dazed and half-dead and unable to breathe properly.  The boy had been thrown back into the colosseum, the roaring of Gunmar and the crowd looking down on him all but deafening.  Jim’s vision was hazy.  His ribs wept.  The boy had been so close to death.  He had wanted to die.

Why wouldn’t the armor let him…?

Why wouldn’t Gunmar let him…?

The stone door encasing his opponent finally slid open, and the young Trollhunter turned his head to see what was bound to approach.

His blood turned to ice as Nomura stumbled forward out of the darkness.  It was the first time in two months he’d actually seen the changeling's face, and she looked awful.  Disheveled and malnourished, Nomura’s glowing green eyes chased the landscape of the colosseum before landing on the walking corpse of James Lake Jr.  She stopped walking, her expression twisting into shock.  Jim could’ve broken down right then and there.

This was his last fight.

Part of him was surprised when the changeling shook off her initial uncertainty and unsheathed her weapons.  He wished he wasn’t as hurt whenever she lunged at him, prepared to kill.  He wished he didn’t feel a dull sense of betrayal.  He wished he’d known better.

Nomura was not his friend.  She never had been.

The fight wasn’t much of a fight, after all.  The young Trollhunter had nothing left.  His armor was thrumming at the same unstable pace as his heart, and he could feel himself losing the last of his resolve.  The Sword of Daylight would no longer be summoned.  His shield was rendered useless.  His helmet wouldn’t appear to protect his skull.  Jim could hear Gunmar laughing.  Nomura was relentless.

The boy fell with a thud, choking on his tears and wrapping an arm around his ribs.  He felt the heat from Nomura’s blade hovering above his head, nearly singeing his matted hair.  The crowd had started chanting something archaic and dreadful, and Gunmar’s hellish gaze could be felt boring into the Trollhunter’s back.

“Little Gynt.”

Nomura’s voice was low.  Low enough for Jim to hear.  Low enough to sound tender.

He looked up at her, his shoulders slumping.  His reflection in her blade didn’t even look like him anymore.

“Please, let me make this quick.”

The changeling’s voice wavered slightly, and through his blotted vision, Jim could’ve sworn he saw tears glistening in her eyes.

“You are strong, child,” she continued, “and you deserve no more of this.”

It was pathetic how quickly Jim resigned himself to Nomura’s decision.  It wouldn’t have even mattered whether she was doing this as an act of mercy or violence.  Jim was done.

The tip of her blade looked like the most heavenly salvation to the boy, now.

The chanting of the crowd had molded into the singing of a choir.

He nodded clumsily, blue eyes fluttering to stay open.

“T…ell my frien’s…”

Nomura frowned, her gaze softening.  She nodded.  “You love them,” she finished graciously and lifted her blade.

For the first time in a long time, Jim felt happy.

At first, he’d thought Nomura had swung.  He’d thought he’d finally been relieved from his armor, from his duty, from his decaying body.

Jim had thought he’d died.

Because he heard Claire’s voice.  And he heard Tobes.  The ground beneath him had disappeared, and his body lifted.  A flash of green fur hardly registered in his mind, and a monstrous roar filled his skull.  Someone was touching him.  Something was touching him.  He attempted to yell for Nomura.

“Master Jim?”

The boy could barely register the shapes that were moving in front of him.

“Master Jim?”

He squinted, flinching when a large hand came up to sweep the sweat from his brow.

“Master Jim, can you hear me?”

Jim forced his eyes open.  It was more exhausting than it should’ve been.  The light his armor expelled was slowly dimming.  His heart felt close to expiration.  But for that voice—that tragically consoling voice—Jim would always open his eyes.

Blinky was looking down at him, the troll’s face contorted into something grotesquely tormented.  His eyes were wild with fear, glistening with tears.  Toby and Claire were beside him, their chests heaving up and down with perfectly functioning hearts.  What he was seeing didn’t make sense.  

There was no outside for him.  There was no Arcadia Oaks.  Not anymore.

He’d been so ready to die…

Something warm filled his chest, and Jim’s jaw unlocked to allow his lips to speak.  

“B…Blink…?”

The young Trollhunter had never seen Blinky cry.  Not when Argh died.  Not when he’d been held captive by Bular.  Not after any of Jim’s most life-threatening missions.  Jim always believed the troll had an absurd handle over his emotions.

Right now, however?

Blinky looked shattered.  He looked so utterly broken that the young Trollhunter could only assume it was his fault.  Distant sounds of an uproar could be heard as the group carried their precious cargo away from Gunmar’s arena, but Jim wasn’t focused on that.  

He was focused entirely on Blinky’s face.

“We’re here, Master Jim,” he was saying, but the words weren’t matching up with his lips.  Jim felt like his head was being shoved underwater, the world around him muffled to a nearly incomprehensible degree.  “We’re getting you home.”

“Just stay awake, okay?” Claire added, her voice strained.

“Let us handle this bit, Jimbo.”  Oh, God… Toby.  

Jim had missed his best friend so much.

The shock was keeping Jim from properly taking in the fact that this was, in fact, a rescue.  His head lolled uselessly in Blinky’s arms, eyes rolling back towards the arena.  “Nom… ura…?”

“She will not follow us-” Blinky began.

“No… please…  Gotta… save her…”

A thunderous gallop began to pound in Jim’s ear, and he looked back towards the group to see… Argh?

No.  No, this wasn’t possible.  He really was dead.  He had to be.

The boy’s ragged breathing hitched, tears rolling down his dirt-stained cheeks.  “Argh…?”

The brutish troll looked toward Jim as they continued running, offering the boy a warm smile.  It was haunting to see him alive… animated… after watching him die at the hands of Angor Rot.  Jim wanted to embrace the towering troll.  Wanted to latch onto him and never let him go.  A heavy sob made the young Trollhunter’s ribs squeeze, and he tried to lift a hand towards his friend.

“Remain still, Master Jim,” Blinky assuaged, using one of his extra arms to take hold of the boy’s wrist.  “We will explain everything later.”

The ground began to rumble, and one look back revealed a swarm of Gunmar’s army pouring from the mouth of the colosseum.  Nomura was running as fast as she could away from the oncoming charge, her eyes meeting Jim’s for a fleeting moment before his rescuers took a sharp right turn, continuing down an unlit corridor.

“‘Mura…” Jim whined, trying to wriggle out of Blinky’s grip.  “Please… please… can’t leave ‘er…”

“Master Jim-”

“Please…”

It didn’t take much to weaken Blinky’s already-crumbling resolve.  Jim was clearly not in the right state of mind, but he trusted the boy with everything in his heart.  Certainly more than Kanjigar.  More than any other Trollhunter he’d ever encountered.  If he was saying to bring Nomura home, they would bring the changeling home.  No questions asked.  Argh managed to collect the exhausted changeling from the clutches of Gunmar’s army at Blinky’s request, and despite Claire and Tobias’s obvious rejections of the idea, it was clear neither Jim nor Blinky was going to budge.

“You remember the way out?” Nomura asked, her nimble form sprinting effortlessly along Blinky’s flank.

“Of course, we do,” he snapped, his attention strictly on the path ahead of them.  Gunmar and his army certainly knew the bridge had been reopened, and they’d be looking to escape to the surface along with the Trollhunter and his extract team.  The army of devilish trolls were racing after them, arrows and spears whizzing past their heads with only inches of clearance.  Claire, Tobias, Argh, and Nomura had taken to returning attacks whenever time allotted, and Blinky was responsible for carrying to battered Trollhunter in his arms.  Responsible for getting him out.

He could hardly bring himself to look down at the boy in his arms.  His armor was fading quickly, eyes fluttering open and closed with each jostle.  The poor boy looked horrible.  More dead than alive, by all accounts.

The Darklands thundered with Gunmar’s enraged cursing, and just as the crew took a left down a winding valley of rubble, the Dark Lord lunged from a vantage point above their escape route, hitting the ground a few yards away from them and blocking off their path.  They skidded to an unsteady halt, and Blinky’s four arms wrapped protectively around Jim’s tiny body.  Argh, furious at the obstacle, wasted no time letting out a roar of his own and charging.  Tobias screamed, desperate to stop his friend from attacking, but Argh seemed hell-bent on extracting his own form of revenge on the devil standing before them.  Nomura turned, unsheathing her blades as Gunmar’s army surrounded them from the back.  The changeling snarled—bowed and tensed—ready to strike.  Claire and Tobias were as valiant as always, flanking Blinky and Nomura as they readied themselves to fight without their weapons.

Humans surprised Blinky more and more every day.  They were astounding creatures, truly.

Argh and Gunmar clashed in the mess of rubble, arms and fangs slashing and tearing, both desperate to tear the other apart.  Argh shoved the Dark Lord back several inches, causing the old troll to grunt and catch himself on a rock jutted out of the wall.  He steadied himself, retrieving his Decimaar Blade and pointing the damned creation in Jim’s direction.

“The boy will not make it past the bridge,” he growled, the authority in his voice shaking Blinky to his very core.  “He will die before you get there.”

Blinky was not a fighter by any means.  Not all trolls were meant to see the heart of battle, and he had known this about himself from a very young age.  He’d buried himself in books, learned history and languages, magics and spells.  Blinky was an intellectual.  He had relied heavily on logic and history to get where he was today.  A learned creature with no wherewithal to fight.  No reason to fight.

But those words…

Those words—spoken with such finality, such jurisdiction— had ignited something fierce within him.  Gunmar spoke over the life of their Trollhunter as if his fate were already decided.  As if, at his very command, Jim’s heart would stop beating.  As if the boy had nothing to cling to.  No one to cling to.

Gunmar did not make that decision.

He would never make that decision.

A low growl tore itself from the back of Blinky’s throat, his eyes boring into the Dark Lord’s as if daring him to make a move.  His arms enveloped the boy entirely, keeping Jim’s head tucked carefully against his chest, and he bore his fangs to the devil, protecting what was his.

Long ago, during the Battle of Killahead Bridge, Blinky did not fight.

Now, he felt like he could tear Gunmar in half.

Chapter Text

His friends would die in the Darklands.

That was the only thought that continued to circulate in Jim’s head.  His friends were all going to die here, and it would be entirely his fault.  They’d come in to rescue him.  They’d risked everything to bring him home…

And Gunmar would simply slaughter them.

He could feel the animalistic rumble of Blinky’s chest.  He heard the sounds of weapons unsheathing, silent curses muttered in preparation.  Jim’s armor gave one last thrum with his heart before finally dematerializing, causing his battered body to shift listlessly in Blinky’s grasp.  A fierce chill ripped past his flesh and sank into his bones, rattling the young Trollhunter to the point his limbs locked up.  A small sound brushed past his chapped lips, but Blinky quickly shushed him, one of his large hands cradling the back of Jim’s head and running through the boy’s raven hair.

“D-don’t-” Jim whimpered, his hand clutching weakly at the troll’s clothes.

“His will has already perished.”  Gunmar’s voice rolled over the rotting underworld.  “He is soon to follow.  Abandon your hope, and perhaps I will spare you.”

“Go…” the boy wept, chest hitching painfully with every wheezing breath he took.  “Pl…ease…”

His friends would not go.  He knew they wouldn’t.  Not after all of the trouble they must’ve gone through to bring him back home.  He knew better than to assume they’d just drop him and run.  But God, he wished they would.  He wished they’d leave him to die.  He wished they’d escape and destroy that damned bridge once and for all.  Jim was so tired of being called back into the fray.  He was so exhausted from putting his friends and family in danger after each decision he made.  The guilt was going to eat him alive.

“We will not let you harm this child,” Blinky’s voice argued, a hostility laced in his tone that Jim had never heard before.  The young Trollhunter curled further into the troll’s embrace when Gunmar released a laugh that rippled through his very soul.

“I’ve already made a fine example of him,” the Dark Lord triumphed.  “You are far too late.”

That pulled another reaction from Argh, whose infuriated growl seemed to strike courage through the group.  In an instant, their standstill with the Dark Lord and his forces came to an end.

The battle for their escape ensued.

Gunmar and his army charged, the horde so large that it deafened the valiant cries of Jim’s friends as they raced to meet the sea of devils with everything they had.  The boy had never been especially religious, but he imagined the brutality around him to sound similar to Judgment Day.  Screeching and wailing and roaring of hellish creatures.  Blades of righteousness unveiled.  Souls being torn apart and dispersed to the divines.

Nomura could be heard grunting and hissing like some wild thing, her scimitars singing in exaltation after every enemy she felled.  Argh and Gunmar sounded like the unleashing of an earthquake, and Claire and Toby shielded Jim with their bodies, flanking Blinky and guiding him away from the fray.  They needed to continue down this path, but a slight deviation northeast would wrap them around the danger and back to the bridge.

“Let’s go, let’s go!  C’mon!” Toby shouted, leading the way with Claire by his side.  Blinky sprinted, trusting in both Argh and Nomura to follow once their hands weren’t full.  Normally, he’d be petrified at the idea of his mate going up against the Dark Lord, but right now, Argh seemed ready to scourge the Darklands with buckets of Gunmar’s remains.

Claire and Toby rushed to follow the path back to safety, sparing only a few glances behind them to check in on Jim’s condition.  He was staying conscious by sheer panic, made even worse by the fact that he didn’t have eyes on everybody.  He couldn’t see Argh, nor Nomura.  He could hardly lift his head to ensure Toby and Claire were in one piece.  The only person he had any sort of idea of was Blinky, and he’d made himself a massive target by carrying the young Trollhunter in his arms like some sort of child.  Jim’s thin hand, dusty pale and horribly malnourished, slowly tugged at the fabric of Blinky’s clothing.

The troll looked down, taking in the boy’s features for as much time as he was allotted.  Jim’s vibrant blue eyes had grown visibly dull, his cheeks sunken and hollow.  His hair had grown out in the past two months, matted and fragmented with blood.  Bruises littered just about every inch of him that was exposed; with his armor now gone, the totality of the damage done to their young Trollhunter was ghastly.  He didn’t seem to have suffered any deep lacerations, only some minor abrasions on his face and neck.  The bruises were ugly, however.  Deep purples and reds fading into hauntingly pale flesh.  Splotches of greyish-yellow skin showed signs of damage sustained longer ago, but all of it was calamitous.

Teartracks had paved thin streaks down his gaunt cheeks, and more were flowing from those squinted, anguished eyes.

“Lem…me go…” Jim begged, shaking his head as much as he could.  “Gon…gonna get hurt, Blink…”

Deya, give me strength, Blinky thought miserably, taking a sharp right and barely dodging a Gumm-Gumm soldier as they were thrown into the wall above him.  Argh and Nomura had managed to catch up with the group, and a small streak of pride lent itself to increasing Blinky’s pace.

“We are not leaving you here,” Blinky responded firmly, his voice gravely from exertion.  He was doing his very best not to lament the past two months.  He was doing his very best not to break down running, because that would only end up getting everybody killed.  He was doing his very best to remain put-together to ensure this boy, if nothing else, made it back to Arcadia.

But for everything holy, Blinky just wanted to hold his son in a way that wasn’t part of their mission.  He longed to cradle the boy, to comfort him.  He longed to return home and watch over him.  Longed to speak to him and tell him how sorry he was for everything, and then reprimand him for venturing into the Darklands alone.

“Blinky!”

Argh’s warning sounded a second too late, and before the troll could properly brace himself, Gunmar was charging into his side, knocking him off the path and down into a steep canyon.  Blinky could hear his friends all calling for him, their voices echoing desperately into the darkness, but he could do little more than curl around Jim’s fragile body and hope as little damage as possible was inflicted.  Blinky’s body collided with a piece of beaten debris, pain shooting up his spine and causing a gruff sound of protest to escape him.  Panting as they rolled to a stop, the troll instantly looked down towards the shielded boy in his arms.

“Master Jim?” he whispered hurriedly.  “Are you alright, my boy?  I’m so sorry, we’re going to-”

Gunmar landed with a vociferous roar, pinning Blinky to the debris with a massive, clawed hand and retrieving his blade with the other.  The smaller troll only had time to gasp, wrapping Jim in his arms as protectively as he could while eyeing the soul-stealing sword in Gunmar’s possession.

“I warned you,” Gunmar panted, his eye glowing a callous blue.  His blade began to shriek, igniting with the souls of those already imprisoned as he brought it towards Blinky’s face.  “There will be no mercy, now.”

Panic latched itself to Blinky’s chest, the troll doing his best to jerk his head away from the blade.  He could not succumb to this fate… not with the young Trollhunter in his very grasp.  A deep, primordial hollowness started to eat at the center of his heart and spread out, the blade hovering above his face desperate and hungry, ready to devour all the goodness left in Blinky’s spirit.

“No-” the troll groaned, straining himself against the blade’s pull.  He felt Gunmar’s hand tighten around his throat.  Jim was saying something to him, trying to move-

No, no, no.  Please, Deya, not like this-

Something loud and heavy crashed on top of Gunmar, jostling the Dark Lord so much that the Decimaar Blade was dropped from his very grasp.  Blinky had just enough time to inhale his very soul back into his body before Argh appeared, ruffled from his trek down the canyon but all the more violent.  His massive claws gripped Gunmar’s flank, tearing him away from Blinky and hurling him into the opposite canyon wall.  The brutish troll turned back towards his mate, his expression tightening with worry as he raced over and nuzzled his face into the side of his neck.  

“Blinky okay?”  He looked down at the boy pressed against his chest.  “Jim?”

Blinky nodded, suppressing the urge to cry at Argh’s unfathomable tenderness.  “Yes, I’m alright,” he muttered quickly.  “Master Jim is… we must hurry, Argh.”

The bigger troll grunted in understanding, cocking his head to gesture for Blinky to grab hold of his coat of fur.  “Hold on.”

Gunmar’s furious roaring echoed from below as Argh made the climb back up the canyon’s steep wall.  The Dark Lord would be back on their trail in moments, and his army was still scrambling in their direction.  They’d be lucky if none of them had already made it to the bridge.  Claire and Toby were nearly inconsolable as the three appeared from the decline, asking if Blinky was okay and peering over his arms to try and check on Jim.

“Don’t just stand around,” Nomura hissed, ushering the humans back towards their path to salvation.  “Quickly, run!”

Argh flanked Blinky’s right, ensuring his mate wouldn’t fall back into the open mouth of the canyon and simultaneously nudging him onward.  Nomura’s presence had not been anticipated, and while Kanjigar had urged the group to return home with Jim alone, Blinky didn’t mind disregarding what the pompous spirit ordered.  They’d cross that bridge when they got there—in this case, literally—and they’d make sure to deal with the consequences.  They always pulled together to find a solution, even if it was considered amateur by most.  It was always better than sitting around doing nothing, which is what the spirits of all the Trollhunters who had come to pass seemed content to do.

Their path led them up and onward; one more incline to ascend, and the portal would be straight ahead.  Argh was quick to act, hurrying to the front of the group to gather Claire and Toby.  The two humans clung to his back as he began scaling the imposing obstacle, Blinky followed behind him, and Nomura started up last.  Jim had grown impossibly still, his chest rising and falling in short bursts, lips twitching with the urge to speak.  Blinky cradled the boy with one of his arms, using the other three to clamber up the craggy surface.

“Could you go faster?” Nomura snarled, and Blinky considered kicking her so hard she went sprawling back towards the ground.  

“Mind your tongue,” the troll responded harshly, panting as he neared the top.  Argh and the humans made their climb safely, and Blinky’s mate quickly turned to offer him his hand.  The smaller troll accepted graciously, heaving as he was pulled to the top of the incline.  Nomura followed expeditiously, the bellowing sound of Gunmar’s army not far behind.  The crew wasted no time in rushing forward; all they had to do was cross over the bridge that lay ahead of them and pass through the portal.  They could smell the outside world from here, the portal sparking and rumbling with strenuous utilization.  A blue mist was swirling angrily in the middle, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out their time was almost up.

“We’re almost there!” Toby exclaimed over the uproar, grabbing Claire’s arm and ushering her forward.  The Gumm-Gumm army had already started climbing on top of one another to scale that dreadful incline, spitting and growling like hellfire to reach the top.  A shrill cry desolated the Darklands, the mere sound of it causing tears to blur Blinky’s vision.  From below, snaking through shadows and clouds of fallen debris, came hurling a centipede-like creature.  It had to have been four hundred yards in length, immovable and goliath.  It wrapped around the bridge, warbling alarmingly before extending forward, ready to kill the group right at their precipice of victory.  

A Nyarlagroth.

Argh hurried to the front, desperate to protect the small crew by any means necessary.  Blinky would have had a heart attack if he wasn’t already so strung-out.  His eyes snapped back and forth, trying to find any other route to take to the closing portal, but-

A thunderous rattling suddenly raced through the portal, and for a moment, Blinky feared it had already closed.  That was until he heard Draal’s familiar howling and the imposing, garrulous architecture of Trollmarket’s very own gyre.  The vehicle sped over the slimy top coat of the Nyarlagroth’s back, causing the creature to screech painfully and throw itself about the bridge, attempting to be rid of the sudden torment.  Blinky had never been so happy to see that damned creation in all of his life, and Draal skidded to a stop in front of the group, making room for them in the globe-shaped interior.

“You were supposed to guard the portal!” Blinky snapped, though there was less ferocity in his voice as there was relief.

“My father said I had a choice,” Draal returned quickly, “this is my choice.  Get in!”

They were already breaking one of Kanjigar’s rules, Blinky figured.  How would breaking another one hurt?  The group clambered inside the gyre, hardly having the time to settle in before Draal was revving the vehicle back to life and spinning in the direction of the portal.  The Nyarlagroth let out a furious sound, ready to strike again when Draal slammed the handle forward, and the gyre sped across the bridge, tearing through the creature’s very flesh in order to brush it out of their way.

The Darklands screamed whenever the group passed through that portal.  Killahead Bridge fell with a weep from the ancient stone, crumbling just as the gyre passed its threshold.  The sounds of the rotten inferno echoed through the woods around them, Gunmar’s army turning to husky vibrations easily carried away by the wind.  Blinky’s ears were ringing something dreadful, his body burning from the arduous toil of their escape.

The smell of decay and death lingered in the troll’s nose, but the overwhelming, almost alien scent of petrichor and damp earth was easing that ominous reminder of their trek.  The sun was setting over Arcadia Oaks, and the leaves overhead sang tender songs of rejoice.  Over the beating of his thrumming heart, Blinky heard the sound of birds.

Everyone was silent for a moment, as if waiting for the portal to reopen and for Gunmar and his forces to come charging.  Even after everything they’d just endured, their escape felt far too easy.  Perhaps they’d simply grown numb to the perilousness of their tasks.  Their existence.

Slowly, each member of the party let out breathless sounds of relief, Claire and Toby embracing as Draal and Argh shared a knowing look of alleviation.  Nomura exhaled, resting her head against the side of the gyre and closing her gleaming green eyes.

They were home.

And then… softer than the whispering of the tallgrass and less substantial than even the flutter of a bird’s wings, they heard the delicate sound of the young Trollhunter weeping.

Blinky shook himself out of his momentary paralysis, looking down at the boy in his arms.  To see him in this light… to see him back home, and still so infirm… Deya, it was awful.

“Master Jim…” Blinky spoke, lowering himself to his weary knees and giving his body the chance to rest.  The adrenaline was quickly fading, and replacing it was two months' worth of agony, all of which he’d kept locked inside for the sake of the people he cared about.  For the sake of their morale.  The young Trollhunter looked so exhausted, the shell of his former self.  Gaunt and beaten, unable to muster up the strength to speak sentences.  Unable to lift his own head.

His tears had started off muted; they’d been smothered against Blinky’s chest and swallowed to try and dwindle any sounds of weakness.  But the longer the group sat, dumbfounded and relieved and shocked at their success, the more Jim simply broke down.

He couldn’t place how he was feeling.  Pain was most prominent, but it had been for two months.  He could briefly place the earthy smell that surrounded him, but his nose was still clogged with dried blood, and even the sweet reminder of rain wasn’t able to offer the boy any sense of comfort.  Exhaustion was the second most prevalent; a consistent buzzing throughout his bones, his mind dipping back and forth between wakefulness and disorientation.  He did not feel real.  

None of this… none of this felt real…

And that tore him up inside worse than any pain he’d ever experienced.

“Master Jim…” Blinky repeated, the troll’s voice finally—finally, after two months —crumbling in his throat.  His arms remained gentle, one of his hands coming up to sweep the tears from his cheeks.  “We’re here.  We’re here, my boy.”

The young Trollhunter could do nothing but sob.

“Jim?  Jim, hey, buddy,” Toby murmured, hurrying to Blinky’s side and taking one of Jim’s limp hands in his own.  Blinky could see the shocking realization flash across Tobias’s face when he felt how frail his best friend was.  “You’re gonna be okay, Jimbo.  I’m right here, okay?  You’re out.  Do you understand?  We got you out.”

Claire hurried to Toby’s side, her hands hovering over Jim’s body, terrified to touch him.  The girl’s face was anguished, flushed, and tense with unspoken apologies.  “Oh, Jim…” she whimpered, covering her mouth and hunching forward, squeezing her eyes shut to try and force the tears away.  Everyone crowded the young Trollhunter, each person trying to rouse him, trying to comfort him.  The air was growing too thin for Blinky to breathe properly.  His boy was nothing but bones.

Argh’s snout suddenly pressed up against his face, and Blinky looked up to face his mate.  For the first time since this hell had been presented to Blinky on a silver fucking platter, he could do what his heart had been longing to do.

He finally broke.

Cradling Jim like he was his only redemption, Blinky fell into Argh’s embrace, sobbing with every ounce of misery that had remained locked in his chest.

“My boy…” he wept, running his hand through Jim’s hair.  “Our boy, Argh…”

No one had ever seen Blinky like this.  No one had ever witnessed the grieving of a father.  No one could have predicted the cold, despondent innervation that plunged into their spirits.  It was so heavy, so wrapped in affliction that the group felt like they were being suffocated.

“You’re going to be okay,” Blinky was whispering, holding Jim close and nuzzling the side of his face.  “You’re home now, it’s okay…  You’re home…”

Chapter Text

Jim felt warm.

For the first time in… however long it had been… he actually felt warm.  He couldn’t register much outside of that general, all-encompassing feeling; now so foreign to him, the sensation of being swaddled.  His mind didn’t seem entirely intact, and normally that would horrify him.  The first rule of Trollhunting was to always be afraid.  To remain vigilant.  To never let one’s thoughts escape them.  All Jim felt compelled to do was let his thoughts escape him, however.  At least for a little while.

The young Trollhunter’s head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton, and he couldn’t string together a coherent rationalization if he’d tried.  His eyelids were far too heavy to even consider opening, but the subtle shifting of shadows floated along his fragmented psyche.  Once again, the weight of death loomed heavy over his mind.  This long-forgotten sense of comfort felt like such a violent antithesis to the life he’d been living in the Darklands.  Death felt like a luxury.

Something cold pressed up against Jim’s heated flesh, and a shudder rippled through him at the sudden intrusion.  What was touching him?  Was he bleeding?  That didn’t make any sense… he hadn’t been bleeding before, had he?

“Shhh…”

A voice rumbled somewhere above Jim, the sympathetic brush of thick fingertips penetrating numbly against over-sensative flesh.  He hadn’t thought he’d spoken, but Jim also didn’t feel like he had any autonomy over his bodily functions.  Or what was left of his body, he supposed.

Something soft fluttered around him, adding another layer of warmth that Jim happily sank into.  A quiet hum vibrated through his throat; a sound of thanks, of reprieve.  To whatever plane of existence he currently resided in, the young Trollhunter was eternally grateful.  

*****

Transporting the young Trollhunter to Tobias’s residence hadn’t been difficult.  Once the sun had set, and stars appeared through the darkness to welcome the group home from their venture into hell, sneaking back into suburbia was the least of their problems.  Blinky hadn’t spoken since Jim’s consciousness faded, and Argh stuck close to his mate’s side as Tobias and Claire led their way home.  Nomura (surprisingly) had decided to stick with the group, at least until Jim’s health began looking up again.  Draal had attempted to start some sort of conversation with the changeling, given their history, but it was clear neither of them had the energy to keep up a substantial conversation.

Everyone was exhausted.

Everyone was worried about Jim.

Jim’s house had been off-limits; his mother was most likely still awake and waiting for her boy to come home.  The group would never be able to sneak in under her diligent eye, and even if they did, neither Claire nor Tobias could explain the state her child was in.  Their next best option was the Trollhunter’s best friend, and Toby was more than willing to convert the space into Jim’s temporary safe haven.  Blinky would’ve preferred they take the boy to Trollmarket, but with the Tribunal already furious at Jim’s decision to enter the Darklands, that would offer more danger than it would security.

Tobias’s grandmother was dead asleep by the time the group made it to the premises.  The older woman wasn’t completely there, by Blinky’s recollection, and they could easily slip in and out of the house without being noticed.  Argh had been doing it for months before his death, and if the biggest troll of all of them could remain discreet, that gave the rest of them all the more reason to do the same.

Toby was quick to clear away space in his upstairs bedroom, pulling back the covers on his bed and rummaging through his dresser for any extra clothes for Jim to wear.  Claire had made haste to grab a first aid kit from Toby’s bathroom at his request, along with some washcloths and a bar of soap.  Draal and Nomura, while hesitant to leave the Trollhutner’s side, agreed to stand guard outside; they posted up in Toby’s backyard in case there was an off-chance they’d been followed out of the Darklands.  The others hurried to construct a makeshift infirmary for Jim, Blinky doting ceaselessly over the boy’s limp body and muttering words of reassurance that the young Trollhunter would surely not hear.

Blinky was laboriously affable in the process of removing Jim’s ruined clothes, stripping the tattered garments from Jim’s pale skin and trying not to mourn at the bruises that painted his form like brands.  His ribs were most certainly broken, and while a human doctor would have been preferable for Jim in this state, they would ask too many questions that the boy wouldn’t have answers for.  Besides, Blinky could send word to Vendel regarding their situation; the elder troll would be more than happy to lend his magics to assist the boy’s healing.  As of now, he was the only ally in Trollmarket any of them had.

Jim didn’t so much as stir as he was changed from one pair of clothes to the next, and hardly anyone spoke.  The totality of their mission was finally hitting all of them, and the fact that their beloved Trollhunter was finally home seemed to stun them all into silence.  There was also an undeniable sense of sacredness that drenched the interaction between Blinky’s paternal actions and the boy’s unconscious body; nobody dared break the pensive trance the troll appeared to be under.

Draal was sent to collect Vendel and press him for aid, and during that time, Claire had taken to dressing the cuts on Jim’s gaunt face.  Tobias was collecting necessities such as water and granola bars from his kitchen—eating was going to be an incredibly strenuous task for Jim, no doubt, but he had to try—and Argh had finally managed to pull Blinky away from the boy’s sleeping form.  The trolls sat hunched in the far corner of Tobias’s room while the humans tended to their friend, and Blinky was doing his best to fight the dissociation that had started to settle into his aching bones.

“Blinky…” Argh muttered, gently nudging his mate in an attempt to get the smaller troll to look him in the eye.  Two of Blinky’s arms were crossed over his chest, while the other pair wrung out their palms and fidgeted with their fingers (Blinky finally saw who Jim had picked the habit up from).  His gaze remained fixed forward, staring at the boy’s side profile as Claire tended to him and Toby spoke to him as if he were awake.  Argh poked him again, pressing his snout against Blinky’s cheek.  “Jim is safe.”

The smaller troll’s eyes flitted up to meet Argh’s gaze, his expression softening at the patient, unwavering devotion in his mate’s expression.  “Yes…” Blinky whispered, though there was no conviction in his tone.  “I know…”

Argh shook his head, settling closer to Blinky and pressing his face against the crook of his neck.  “Missed Blinky.  Love you.”

Blinky felt like his heart split in two at his mate’s words, restraining himself to keep from breaking down all over again.  Relief wasn’t even enough to describe how he felt right now.  Argh was back for good, the Trollhunter had been rescued from the Darklands, and he was finally getting a moment to breathe.  All of their work had been worth it in the end.  Every solitary moment Blinky had spent burning through his library.  Every time Claire or Tobias came to the troll seeking comfort.  Every time Blinky would look over and see the statue of Argh’s corpse… frozen in terror.

It had all been worth it.

Blinky let out a shaky exhale, nuzzling into Argh’s fur and wrapping his arms around his mate’s towering form.  “You have no idea, my dear…” he managed brokenly, swallowing the lump in his throat.  “I love you, too.”

“Jim strong,” Argh reassured the smaller troll.  “He will recover.”

Blinky closed his eyes, his ears drooping with the weight of his inner turmoil.  “Look at what they’ve done to him, Argh…”  He shuddered once more, unable to erase the image of Jim’s bloodied cell from the recesses of his mind.  “It took us so long…”

“Cannot blame yourself,” Argh returned, the low timbre of his voice similar to that of silk enwrapping Blinky’s fatigued brain.  “Not Blinky’s fault.”

For a troll of so few words, Argh always knew what to say.  His words were crushing, and Blinky was nowhere near comfortable enough to stop the tides of guilt and self-hatred from sweeping him into his own personal hell, but they were appreciated nonetheless.

“I’ll sneak back over to your place and grab some of your clothes,” Tobias was saying, obviously dejected and yet trying so hard to save face for his best friend (who was still very much unconscious).  “You’d be proud, Jimbo.  I’ve been keepin’ up appearances pretty well.  Your mom doesn’t even know you’ve been gone.  Guess you should thank the Glamour Mask when you wake up.”

“Should you disguise yourself now?” Claire asked, pausing her ministrations.  “His mom’s probably worried she hasn’t seen… y’know… Jim all day.  Wouldn’t it be smart to ease her mind?  At least until she goes to bed?”

Tobias shrugged, taking one of the warm washcloths Claire had collected and scrubbing on a hefty amount of soap.  Carefully, he began cleaning the exposed bits of Jim’s flesh.  The action was so respectful—seemingly so commonplace—that nobody said a word.  His eyes remained trained on his best friend’s limp body, and Blinky could see the way his bottom lip wobbled before he was able to steady himself.

“I’ll deal with it later,” he muttered.  “I want to be here right now.  With him.”

Claire didn’t oppose, getting back to work cleaning and covering the cuts that littered Jim’s face and neck.  They treated the young Trollhunter as if he were made of glass, cradled him like the finest of porcelain.  They were mostly silent, but when they spoke, they somehow managed to mask two months’ worth of worry and stress with soft jokes and casual reminders that Jim had missed so much homework.

Humans… Blinky thought to himself.  What beautiful creatures.

Chapter Text

Vendel, as expected, had been a great help.  He’d returned with Draal about an hour after they’d sent word for the elder, and had thankfully saved his scathing remarks and looks of scorn until after the healing magic had been administered.  He commented on the gruesome state the boy was in, wincing slightly whenever his borrowed shirt was pulled up to reveal a dark mass of skin.  Jim was always a skinny kid, but now his broken ribs could be seen poking out from beneath his flesh.  He was lucky none of them seemed to have punctured a lung.

The young Trollhunter didn’t stir whenever Vendel worked his magic.  He didn’t stir afterward, when the elder attempted to rouse him.  He didn’t stir when Blinky snapped at their ally to ‘stop prodding’.  That was probably a blessing; the boy didn’t deserve to endure any more pain, and he’d surely have felt that shifting and re-mending of his snapped ribs had he been conscious.

Vendel had questions, which everyone expected.  Blinky did his very best to answer all of them with propriety and forbearance, though it was hard to keep up a persona of forced formality when he was two seconds away from passing out.  Everyone was spent, and Vendel (thankfully) eventually caught on to that fact.  He was half-tempted to continue berating Blinky for the carelessness in which he’d exhibited rebuilding the bridge and resurrecting Argh, especially since the usually articulate troll didn’t have nearly as much to say as he typically did.  He decided against it, electing to assure them that their secret would remain with him; no one would know the Trollhunter was back, and as long as he was breathing, no one would find out about Killahead Bridge.

Jim deserved— needed —time to actually heal.

The hours to follow were relatively silent.  There was an understanding between all members of Jim’s rescue party that their moods for the foreseeable future were directly dependent on how the Trollhunter healed and when he woke up.  How he woke up, just as well.  Toby had to play the facade of Jim for a little while longer, using the Glamour Mask to keep the young Trollhunter’s mother from asking questions.  Blinky, of course, felt guilty.  Jim had been trapped in the Darklands for two entire months, and his mother hadn’t even known he was gone.  His mother didn’t know he was the Trollhunter at all, and this certainly wouldn’t be the nicest way to find out.  Tobias was a good sport about keeping on the act, however.  He’d go to the ends of the earth for Jim, and in fact, very well had.

Playing pretend for a few more weeks wasn’t about to deter him.

Claire spoke to Jim often, never getting any sort of response.  She’d thank him over and over for rescuing her baby brother.  She’d scold him for his recklessness, check to make sure his injuries were healing as needed, and then scold him again.  Draal was adamant about keeping watch over the premises, sticking to the treeline.  He seemed devastated regarding Jim's condition, but Draal was never one to dwell on weakening emotions.  Argh and Blinky didn’t so much as leave the bedroom, sleeping in shifts and constantly checking to make sure the boy’s heart was still beating.  Nomura, for her part, eventually slunk her way up into Tobias’s bedroom to check on the downed Trollhunter for herself.

It was clear nobody was thrilled she’d joined them on their journey out of the Darklands, especially because she’d been poised to kill Jim only seconds before they were able to rescue him.  Regardless, none of them spoke about it.  Their scorn simmered in the room.  Nomura no doubt felt it, but she always had an excellent poker face.

It was Jim’s first official day back home after being returned from the Darklands, and he hadn’t so much as moved deep into the afternoon.  Tobias had made his way across the street to act as Jim for a few hours, and Claire had returned to her home to grab a change of clothes and take a shower.  Argh was sleeping in the corner of the bedroom, his steady breathing offering Blinky a small sense of comfort.

“He was incredibly brave,” Nomura eventually spoke, and Blinky didn’t answer her.  Not for a long while, anyway.  The changeling stood over Jim’s frail body, an unreadable expression on her face.  Blinky had busied himself with brushing the clumps of dried blood out of the boy’s hair, carefully cradling his head in two of his large hands.

“He always is,” the troll eventually spoke, focusing on a particularly nasty snag in the bristles of his brush.

“I’d never seen Gunmar so outraged.”

“Hm…”  Blinky managed to brush the clump out, cringing slightly as flakes of dandruff and dried blood drifted onto the pillow.  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” Nomura answered.  She didn’t sound angry or defensive.  She didn’t sound like much of anything.  “But you should know.  He spoke of you often.  Of all of you.”

The hairbrush got caught in yet another patch of matted hair, and this time Jim actually reacted.  It was the first sign of life the boy had emitted, aside from the slow rise and fall of his chest.  He let out a short exhale through his nose, eyebrows twitching slightly as a broken noise left his throat.  Quickly, Blinky’s extra pair of arms were working to remedy the situation.  He pulled an extra throw blanket from the edge of Toby’s bed around Jim’s body, gently petting his hair and offering a tender, “Shhh…” to soothe the child.

Jim settled once more, a comfortable hum leaving him before he seemed to drift back into unconsciousness.  Nomura’s expression twitched into something nearly sympathetic, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

“What you saw in there…”

“Don’t finish that sentence.”

“I was only trying to help him.”

“Ah.  Right.  How stupid of me for assuming otherwise.”

“You didn’t see him,” Nomura said, attempting to defend herself.  “Not like I did.  You didn’t see how badly off he was…”

“Yes,” Blinky snarled, shooting the changeling a warning glare.  “I did see.  And I also saw you prepared to behead this boy in Gunmar’s glorified colosseum.  Do not attempt to tell me what I did or did not witness.”

“The child was suffering,” Nomura replied.  “I… could not stand to watch it.  Not anymore.”

“That was not your decision to make.”

“The human agreed.   I'm trying to tell you.  You did not see him-”

“Enough,” Blinky hissed, an authority in his tone he hardly ever used.  His hands paused what they were doing, cradling Jim’s head to keep it from lolling about like that of a dead bird’s.  “The only reason you are here is because Master Jim begged us not to leave you.  If it were up to me, you’d be abandoned in that hellscape.  I’d pray every day that Gunmar was ripping the flesh from your bones.”

Nomura had the audacity to remain silent.

“Do not tell me what I saw.”

After a moment of tense reticence, the changeling offered a small nod.  She spoke no more for the remainder of the day and disappeared once the sun finally set.

Blinky did not hope to see any more of her.

Nomura did not return.

Chapter Text

Jim woke up to silence.  To darkness.

His body still felt warm, but it was very quickly becoming unbearable.  It felt like his hands and feet were on fire, and his chest was burning with each dull thump of his heart.  Dear God, everything hurt…

The young Trollhunter figured he would have been used to a sore body by this point, but he had no such luck.  His entire body felt like it’d been hit by an eighteen-wheeler, and his head was pounding something fierce.  It felt like his eyes were trying to pop out of his skull, and even in this state of disorientation, Jim recognized the beginnings of a migraine.  His stomach was churning horribly, both so hungry he felt like he could eat his own arm, and so sick at the mere thought of food that actual bile began to rise in the back of his throat.

The pain was almost preferred to the fear that overtook him, however.  Jim’s vision wasn’t working properly, it seemed.  None of his senses were.  His body felt so heavy—so numb —that he couldn’t fully register the feeling of a bed.  Of blankets.  Of fresh clothes.  The young Trollhunter tried to speak, but his throat constricted at the mere action.  It felt like he’d totally torn his vocal chords.  His eyes couldn’t seem to adjust to the soft light that was flowing through the window… was that real?

He’d gone without natural light entirely for two months.  Some of the areas in Gunmar’s prison were lit with crystals and glowstones, but everything else was so dark you couldn’t see your hand if it were right in front of your face.  Jim’s armor had offered at least some sort of illumination, but never enough to take in his surroundings.  He wasn’t in his armor right now, however, and that made the young Trollhunter feel more exposed than he ever had in his entire life.  Jim nearly felt naked, his aching body trembling where he lay.

He just needed to piece together where he was.  If he could do that, perhaps he could get a handle on his fear.  

“Master Jim?”

The boy nearly jolted out of his skin at the sudden voice, a sharp gasp leaving him and causing a small coughing fit to rouse from his chest.  Jim’s blue eyes flitted around in the darkness, looking for the owner of the voice he so desperately wished to see.

Blinky appeared seemingly out of the shadows, his towering blue form taking up all of the young Trollhunter’s vision.  Moonlight bathed the troll in an abating latency, and despite Jim’s disheveled state and blurry eyesight, the relief in Blinky’s eyes shone clear as day.

“Blinky…?”

The troll exhaled softly, a pained smile crossing his features before he leaned down, scooping Jim’s body into his arms.  The informality would have caught Jim off guard if he weren’t so pleased to see his mentor.  A shudder rippled through his frame at the feeling of being nestled, and Jim buried his face against Blinky’s chest, nearly breaking down when the troll’s large hand came up to card through his hair.

“My boy…” Blinky murmured, nothing short of love in his tone.  “My beautiful boy…”

Jim had no idea how long he’d been trapped in the Darklands.  The incessant torment made it difficult for him to keep track of time, and eventually, he’d just stopped trying altogether.  The young Trollhunter had gotten used to his cold cell.  He’d gotten used to the rationed food that tasted like nothing.  He’d gotten used to sharing stories with Nomura, even if the changeling was only pretending to listen.  He’d gotten used to passing out, only to be woken up at some undisclosed time and tossed back into the Dark Lord’s arena.  He’d gotten used to the smell of decay and the way his armor had started to feel more like a death sentence.  For all he knew, he could’ve been in that hellscape for a week, and it would’ve felt like two years.

But something in Blinky’s lamenting voice told Jim all he needed to know.  There was something heavy and pulverized in the troll’s gentle caresses, and in the way he pulled away to study Jim’s face.  The young Trollhunter had never before seen his mentor so tortured.  He might not have known how long he was stuck in the Darklands, but Blinky’s reaction alone told the boy he’d been imprisoned for a long time.  Much longer than he’d assumed.

One of Blinky’s hands came up to caress Jim’s uninjured cheek, his three extra arms all moving separately to adjust his blankets or fuss over the boy’s unkempt hair.  Normally, had Jim been on the receiving end of such affections, he’d have politely declined them.  He’d have assured Blinky he was fine, or that he could handle himself, or that a Trollhunter didn’t need to be babied.

But the moonlight piercing through the window sang psalms of home and reunion, and the boy still felt like an alien inhabiting the skin of someone long since dead.  Blinky was looking at him like he might break at a moment’s notice (he very well might), and a better look around revealed the interior of Toby’s bedroom.

Where his friends were all sleeping.

Toby was curled up in a sleeping bag at the foot of his bed, and Claire was situated in her own right beside him.  Argh— Argh was actually alive, he hadn’t been hallucinating— was snoring softly in the far corner of the bedroom, his tail gliding unconsciously along the hardwood.

Jim looked back up to meet Blinky’s gaze, and for an instant, the troll found himself gazing upon the pale face of a child.  Their young Trollhunter technically was a child, of course, but he never acted like one.  The more Blinky had come to learn about Jim’s family history, the more he concluded that Jim never felt like he could be a child.  He couldn’t risk relying on others to take care of him, especially since he placed that responsibility on his shoulders to be the warden of everyone else’s wellbeing.  No wonder the amulet had chosen him…

Jim’s selflessness was borderline suicidal.

“I… I’m h’me…?”

Again, Blinky found himself praying to Deya.  Again, he asked her for strength.  Because the trembling conjecture in the young Trollhunter’s voice was enough to make Blinky weep.

“Yes,” Blinky assured the boy, the word passing in a gust of relief.  “Yes, James.  You’re home, my dear boy.”

Jim sniffled, looking back towards his friends as they slept soundly around him.  He moved his arms, attempting to prop himself up on his elbows.  Barely managing to lift his head from the pillow, Jim hissed and sank back into the mattress, defeated.  Blinky placed a hand on the boy’s chest, feeling the steady beating of his heart.

“Don’t move, Master Jim,” he advised gently.  “That would be unwise, considering your condition.”

The troll reached over toward the nightstand, grabbing an unopened bottle of water and twisting the cap.  He wasn’t sure whether to curse the object for being so small, or his hands for being too big.  The cap gave, and Blinky carefully brought the bottle up to Jim’s chapped lips.

“Drink,” he instructed softly, aiding the child as he took a few tentative sips.  He wiped a loose stream of water from the young Trollhunter’s chin, pulling the bottle away and allowing Jim to take a few shaky breaths.  “Do you think you can manage any food?”

Jim looked over as Blinky presented a small granola bar from Toby’s nightstand.  Despite how hesitant he was to ingest anything at the moment, Jim knew he needed to eat.  Something simple shouldn’t cause his stomach too much upset, and Blinky was already unwrapping the granola bar and handing it to the boy before he could voice any protests.  His hands shook a they brought the food up to his mouth, and the act of chewing had gotten dismally exhausting since the last time he tried it.  The taste of honey and granola was incredibly welcome, though, and Jim felt his soul reignite at the simple pleasure of flavor.  Blinky kept the boy’s head elevated as he ate, hovering anxiously around Jim’s reanimated body.

“Easy,” the troll murmured as the young Trollhunter successfully demolished the small nugget of sustenance he’d been provided.  “We can’t have you choking, now.”

Jim’s eyes dragged towards the window that hovered above Toby’s bed.  “M…my m-mom…?”

“Does not know a thing,” Blinky assured him.  “Tobias has been acting as you on your behalf.  Your secret is safe.”

Seemingly satisfied with that answer, Jim let his eyes close for a moment longer.  “Y’re… all okay…?”

Blinky smiled, scoffing in disbelief.  “We are perfectly fine, Master Jim.  Made even better now that you are home.”  He brought the bottle of water back up towards the boy’s lips, helping him take another drink.  “I assure you, our health should not be your priority.”

Jim shifted his gaze from the window back down to his friends, and Blinky could tell simply by the dazed look on his face that he was having a hard time connecting to the reality that surrounded him.

“I-I don’t… understand…?” he managed, his thin fingers fidgeting at the oversized fabric of his borrowed t-shirt.  “You… none of you were supposed to-”

“You should know us well enough by now,” Blinky interjected, taking one of Jim’s shaking hands in his own, “to understand we would never leave you, Master Jim.  And certainly not in such an unsavory place.”

Unsavory.  

That was one way to describe the Darklands.

“But how did you manage?” Jim questioned, giving Blinky a concerned look.  “What did you do?  H-how did you get in?  I thought the portal closed…”

Blinky gave the young Trollhunter’s hand a gentle squeeze.  “We were able to retrieve the pieces.  We got some… help, I’ll call it, from Kanjigar.”

Jim’s eyes widened.  “How?  I didn’t think he could intervene?”

“He was hesitant to, yes,” Blinky responded bitterly.  “Regardless, good came from it.  Argh is back, and so are you.  We’d have moved the heavens to get you back, my dear boy.”

“And… n-no one is hurt…?  Nomura, did she make it?”

Blinky frowned, mentally reminding himself that during those two months Jim had been trapped, the changeling was all he’d had for company.  As vexed as he was about Nomura’s hand in Jim’s near-demise, he also didn’t not believe what she’d been trying to tell him before.  The Trollhunter had been treated so inhumanely that it wasn’t difficult to imagine how desperate he’d been for an out.  Especially since he’d convinced himself there was no one coming for him.

“She made it out with us,” Blinky assured the boy.  “Nobody was hurt, I promise you.  Nomura left the company last night and hasn’t returned.  She’s more than likely fled.”  Jim’s expression grew tight with worry, but the troll was quick to mitigate any sense of unease that might lie upon his shoulders.  “She made sure you were safe.  I think it is safe to say you’ve earned her respect.  Try not to fret.  The changeling had no reason to stick around once you were taken care of.”

Jim blinked, looking down at his hand in Blinky’s.  “I… wanted to thank her.”

Blinky sighed, slowly kneeling by the head of the bed so that he was no longer towering over the injured child.  “She wouldn’t have accepted it,” he said, surprising himself by the lack of malice in his voice.  “The one thing we could all agree on was getting you to safety.  I’m sure Nomura knows the extent of your gratitude.”

Jim didn’t seem entirely persuaded by his mentor’s words, but it was clear he was too exhausted to come up with any sort of refute.  Hesitantly, the boy sank into Blinky’s side, nestling his head against the troll’s chest.  “You guys… shouldn’t have come…” he muttered.  “If anything had happened to you-”

“Nothing happened, Master Jim,” Blinky said, making a proper note never to mention any of their adversaries once they’d crossed the threshold into the Darklands.  That wasn’t for him to worry about.  “We got you out.  We were never just going to leave you.”

The idea of one day the Amulet of Daylight choosing someone else to carry the mantle of Trollhunter made bile burn the back of Blinky’s throat.  Had the day come while Jim was trapped in the Darklands, when the amulet had suddenly jolted to life and found its new host, Blinky didn’t think he’d have been able to recover.  None of them would have.  To know that their beloved Trollhunter died inside that hell, gruesome and alone, would have driven the group to insanity.  If Tobias and Claire had never been able to recover his body… never been able to bury their friend…

Deya…

Jim’s silence had started to worry the troll, who glanced down just as the child wrapped his arms around his torso.

“James…?”

The boy shook his head, keeping his face hidden against Blinky’s chest.  His shoulders were trembling, and his breath felt slightly uneven against the cold expanse of the troll’s chest.  Blinky’s eyebrows furrowed, and he returned the soft embrace with as much tenderness as he could accrue.  He wanted to crush the boy in a monumentous hug.  He wanted to break down entirely and promise Jim he’d never be hurt again.  He wanted to apologize for taking so long.  None of that would help the young Trollhunter, though, and Blinky was socially adept enough to recognize that.

“Jim…” Blinky tried again, resting the palm of one of his hands against the back of the boy’s skull.  His hair really had grown out so much.  “I’m right here for you.”

Jim’s breathing faltered, and he squeezed Blinky tighter.  Still, he shook his head.

Blinky’s expression softened, his heart weakening at the young Trollhunter’s fragmenting bravado.  “You were scared, weren’t you, my dear boy?”

Jim’s grip tightened so much that his hands started shaking.  Blinky could feel the erratic fumbling of breath.  The tensing of muscles, like a bow prepared to release.  And then, very softly…

“Y-yes…”

And Jim started to cry.  Blinky would never get used to the sound, and he would forever mark it as the single most painful auditory experience of his life.  A child so selfless should not choke down his sorrows.  A boy so small should not flinch when a hand was extended as an offering of help.  His voice should not crack at the admission of fear, especially not after surviving such pandemonium.

“Oh, child…” Blinky murmured, smothering Jim in his arms.  “All is well.  You are safe.  You are allowed to cry, my dear boy.  I will hold you, always.”

“I thought I was gonna die…” Jim lamented, ashamed to show his face.  “I w-wanted to…  I wanted to so badly…”

Blinky closed his eyes, attempting to strike those words from his memory the second they were spoken.  He’d have given anything in that moment to tear Gunmar limb from limb.  He’d have defiled the rotten body of that monster without so much as a second thought.  He felt like he could.  Like he owed it to the boy in his arms.

“Shhh… shhh… I know,” Blinky crooned, his voice wavering slightly at Jim’s heartbreaking admission.  “It’s alright…  It’s alright, now…”

Jim pulled away from Blinky’s chest, his face a splotched mess of tears and flushed skin.  “I’m sorry…  I’m so sorry, Blink…  I was jus’so tired-”

“Enough of that,” the troll interjected, shaking his head as he thumbed away the tears cascading down Jim’s cheeks.  “You never have to apologize, do you understand?  Never.”

“But I-”

“You rescued Claire’s brother from the Darklands,” Blinky went on.  “You survived Gunmar’s arena.  You stayed alive, Master Jim.  Have you any idea how monumentous that is…?”

“I jus’... I thought I’d never get out, and I… I wanted it to be over-”

“Goodness, my boy, who wouldn’t?  Nobody blames you.  We never did.”

Jim sniffled, averting his gaze as he reached for Blinky’s extra pair of hands.  “I… I feel awful for leaving you all here…  I just couldn’t… I didn’t think I could stomach losing any more of you…”

Once more, Blinky shook his head.  He squeezed Jim’s little hands in his own and smiled.  “No one blames you, Master Jim.  Of that, I can assure you.  And you haven’t lost any of us.  I’d argue you’ve brought us all closer together.  Vendel even stopped by yesterday, can you believe it?”

Jim’s look of bewilderment caused Blinky to chuckle, and he readjusted one of the sleeves of the boy’s t-shirt.  “He did…?”

“As I live and breathe.  He’s the one who mended your ribs.  Draal brought him in.”

“A-and no one was seen?”

“No one.  Tobias’s guardian seems rather… inactive.”

Blinky didn’t expect that to rouse a small snort from the Trollhunter, but from the sound blossomed a flower of warmth in the troll’s chest.

“You mean old, Blink…”

“Perhaps.  I am much older than she, however, and I do not suffer from the same hindrances.”

“Humans are a little different,” Jim reminded him, and Blinky was pleased to see most of the boy’s torment had left him in a wash of tears.  Still, he offered a moment of silence for the boy to wipe his eyes and settle his nerves.

“A little better?” Blinky eventually asked, and Jim nodded his head.

“Yeah, thanks…”

Jim, of course, was not well.  He would not be well for a very, very long time.  The trauma he’d endured in the Darklands would never leave him, and Blinky was not blind to that.  But for now, in this moment of solace under the light of the moon, he would be okay.  Blinky reached back toward Tobias’s nightstand, retrieving the Amulet of Daylight that Argh had extracted from the rubble of Killahead Bridge.  As bitter as Blinky was at Kanjigar and the Trollhunters of the past, there was no denying the sense of pride he felt when Jim’s fingers wrapped around the item, his tired eyes sweeping over its handiwork with a profound sense of relief.

“I am glad to have you back, Master Jim,” he said, and the boy managed the ghost of a smile, running his thumb over the amulet’s face.  “So very glad.”

“God, you have no idea…” Jim replied, his voice hushed with alleviation.  He held tight to the amulet in his hand before shifting slightly, managing to lift his head enough to look Blinky in the eye.  “Could you… um…

Blinky read the boy’s sleep-addled face in an instant.  He picked up on the hesitance and the way he sank closer to the warmth the troll provided.  Quietly, Blinky sat down on the floor by the head of Tobias’s bed, reaching out his arms to assist Jim in whatever way he needed.  “Of course, James.”

The troll was pleased when the remnants of shame slowly ebbed away from Jim’s features, and the young Trollhunter took Blinky’s offer of assistance in silence.  His mentor carefully lifted Jim off the bed, swaddled in blankets and safe from the world, cradling his body completely and allowing him to rest his weary head in the crook of his elbow.  Jim melted into the cradle with a soft sigh, and he snuggled closer to his greatest source of comfort.

“Wanna talk to ev’ryone…” he uttered, and Blinky smiled.

“They will be here when you wake,” he replied gently, holding the boy closer.  “I promise.  And they will be so happy to see you.”

Jim settled into his new bed, made delicately from blankets and a warm embrace, and impossibly, the horrors of the Darklands seemed so far away.  The horrible chanting of faceless beasts had been traded for the soft snoring of his company.  Jim’s armor had vanished, leaving him instead in a pair of plaid pajama pants and Toby’s old Gun Robot tee.  The pain he’d endured had dulled to a bearable ache, and the cold of Jim’s cell had been dismantled by a familiar room, a mound of blankets, and two pairs of arms that seemed content to hold him for the remainder of the night.  Jim closed his eyes with the intent of opening them tomorrow, the soft glow of moonlight singing his praises.  The reunion could wait a few hours more.

“Love you, Blink…” the young Trollhunter whispered.

Blinky deflated slightly, the delicate earnestness of Jim’s voice acting as a balm to his weathered soul.  He closed his eyes, resting his chin atop the young Trollhunter’s raven hair.  “I love you, too, my boy,” he said.  “More than anything.”