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Douxie wandered up to the house of James Lake Jr., and turned at the intersection separating the sidewalk from the walk up to the front door. That was about as close as he made it though before he couldn’t take another step more. He just stood there and tried for what was probably the sixth time since the walk over here, to explain just how exactly he was about to phrase his request from Merlin.
“Good evening Dr. Lake. Mr. Stricklander.” He rehearsed. “Sorry to wake you, but Merlin has sent me to fetch the guardians of Arcadia for a mission that is of dire importance, but of which I have absolutely no details to offer. I know you barely know me outside the café, but would you mind dropping everything in order to go on a potentially life-threatening excursion? Sound good?”
He sighed and slid his face into his hand.
“Why must Merlin always be so cryptic? A little bit of detail might make my “haste” a bit simpler, you know? What are we even up against here?”
He rolled his eyes and took a step, but just before his foot could hit the pavement, he heard the faint cry of a baby, then of two more, and he paused as the light to one of the upstairs bedrooms flashed on and the tall, green changeling walked in alongside Barbara. Both were visibly tired, but tending to the babies like any responsible parent would. He couldn’t really hear it, but judging by the yawning and the body language, Walter had just offered to take over so Barbara could go back to sleep.
She was a doctor after all? Douxie thought to himself. Her sleep was fewer and farther between as is.
The soft gesture made him smile, but in a second instant brought a sudden frown to his face.
There was no way he could ask Stricklander to come with him, not when this was obviously the place he was needed most.
Douxie stood there, watching as the winged man comforted the three infants back into their cribs and turned on a little night light filled with stars and moons, the patterns swirling around the room and out the window as things at the Lake residence slipped back to slumbering silence.
Walter walked over and grabbed for the thin curtains, ready to pull them closed and strengthen the nightlight's reach, but as he did he took a curious glance downward to see… well nothing out of the ordinary. It was a calm night in Arcadia, so he yawned to himself, shut the blinds, and prepared to spend the next few minutes in the nursery rocking chair, lecturing the children on the history of the Peloponnesian War, something that was already proven to put his students to sleep in a pinch.
Meanwhile, Douxie was already down the street, taking one final glance back at the family he’d left behind. Merlin would be unhappy, but you know what, there were more important things, and a peaceful, uninterrupted life was something that he could grant this particular family. For tonight at least.
“I sure hope Archie is having more luck on his end than I am on mine.”
There was a whoosh of wind and the small dragon landed just below the windowsill of the second story bedroom. It was fairly late, and what with the woman who worked at the museum missing, this changeling was his next target. As it so happens, this particular changeling was also known to visit his former familiar every now and again, so Archie only hoped he'd gotten the right address.
The fact that changelings also referred to their partners as familiars always struck an odd cord with him. The partnership between he and Douxie and between these trolls and the humans was almost nothing alike, and yet they shared the same terms? This was why he chose to be called a "wizard associate" rather a familiar. It made his role sound so much more professional than that of goblins abducting children into the Darklands.
He peeked through the window, not sure what he was expecting to see, but he found his target, the small creature hovering on the ledge of the crib, apparently trying to soothe the tiny infant within.
"Oy! Come on now, it's okay..."
*FWAM!*
A soft toy went flying across the room and into the shelf above the crib, knocking over a photograph before the changeling could jump to grab it. Safe from shattering against the ground now, he let out a breath and climbed back up to the cradle.
"Easy! Keep makin' noise like that and you're going to wake up Mom and Dad. Just calm down. What's got you so worked up tonight, huh?"
At the sight of the picture, the fussing baby seemed to sullen and sit back with a small whimper and a point, some intelligible baby babble following behind the motion.
"What?"
NotEnrique followed the point and observed the picture in his hand. It was of a solo shot of Claire that they kept in the nursery to comfort Enrique. He let out a sigh and jumped down into the crib with the baby, his hand running along the frame of it as he sat down.
“Yeah, I miss big sis too, but don't worry, she’ll be back eventually, and we’ll see her again. She promised.”
The child seemed comforted by the gruff little changeling's words, and he placed the stuffed animal closer to Enrique as he calmed back into a bit of sleep. NotEnrique sighed and placed the photo in the corner, snuggling up to his familiar and petting him softly until he too fell asleep.
Archie watched the entire thing before making a small contemplative sound and sneaking silently back into the sky.
“Well, it’s not as though Merlin specifically said to bring this changeling, right?”
He started back towards town where he caught sight of movement in the otherwise sleeping streets. It appeared to be the dutiful braces wearing kid and the eccentric, loud one with the somewhat familiar face. Now them, he could recruit with little argument, but just in case, it was best to keep the message from Merlin as vague and mysterious as he could. Kids this age loved theatrics and mystery! A grim warning would have them begging for answers, and would surely get them over to Merlin.
“That’s what I’ll do then.”
Resolved, he soared over to a ledge, watching them walking down the sidewalk, deep in their own conversation. It was always fun having those rare moments where he could reveal it to the mortals that he could talk. This was going to be very amusing indeed.
"Time to let the cat out of the bag." He chuckled.
Archie shifted into a cat and prepared to lure them to Douxie’s bookstore, wondering in the back of his mind if his friend was finding the other guardians of Arcadia alright on his own.
It took a few minutes of walking, but Douxie was at the door of the surprisingly out-of-date house that appeared literally overnight to camouflage the aliens' ship. This new/ old house always did make him chuckle a little just looking at it. It was like a blast back to the past, and nobody ever really questioned it. Not that Arcadia was ever really one to question the oddities of this town to begin with.
The aliens that lived here were friendly enough though, and kinder still than some other people in Arcadia that came to Douxie’s mind after a brief flashback of working in the service industry. They were in the Battle of the Bands too, so that meant they were alright in his book, no matter what their histories, but still, Douxie never would have expected aliens in their midst unless he’d seen it with his own eyes a few weeks back.
He, Zoe, and Archie had quickly investigated the newcomers just after the shoplifting incident Zoe told him about. People who didn’t know what money was and who licked records were a bit strange to begin with, even for foreigner standards. Even if money and records were potentially non-existent wherever they were from, those were not typically the go to reactions the average human would have to seeing such things for the first time.
To Zoe the whole incident was even stranger than anything she'd experienced, which was saying something or two given her years. The wizards were each almost a millennia old, and the only creatures this strange upon first impression were either fresh changelings or Fae under the guise of humans. Plus, after Zoe failed to find out what a “kreston” was on the internet, she insisted they do a little investigative snooping later on that week.
Come to their surprise when they found out that there was in fact something different about these new faces in Arcadia, something quite "out of this world" in fact. Definitely a new one for their books and not something they ever thought they might live to see. However, once they figured out the family wasn’t even from the planet, Zoe decided to let the whole shoplifting event slide just that once. It couldn’t be helped. Though, she could live without cleaning the spit off of any more records in the future, and said as much on their way back to town that evening.
Ever since the out of this world discovery, Douxie and Archie had taken to coming this way on some of their night patrols just to make sure things were peaceful and the aliens were adjusting. It had been a rough time, but he’d kept his distance and kept an eye on them at the very least.
He shook the memories out of his mind and reached up to knock on the door, but stopped at the sounds of commotion coming from inside followed by a loud—
CRASH!
He crept instinctually to the window and peeked inside only to see the brother— Krel, he thought was his name— chasing after a headless man in a suit as a woman straight out of a refrigerator commercial from the 50’s laughed maniacally around the living room with a bat, a head tumbling around feet and furniture as the three chased after it in a frenzy.
The wizard's eyes grew wide as he watched them with his mouth gaping by the second.
"This is mental..." he muttered.
The two older ones were spouting off baseball-related nonsense as they ran around the room, and Krel grabbed the head before letting out a deep sigh as he sat back on the sofa, letting the chaos die down around him.
“Why the long face, buckaroo?” The disembodied head asked. “Don’t feel like tossing around the ol' baseball with your pops in the front yard?”
“Homerun!” The woman screamed, swinging the bat so hard she spun around in circles as the glowing blue boy and the headless torso each ducked out of her range, everyone quieting ever so slowly as he did not seem to return their enthusiasm.
“I thought I would be okay, but this is my first night alone...” he admitted softly, almost too soft for Douxie to hear.
"Subausculto..." The wizard whispered a spell and placed a finger up to the house in order to hear better what was being said inside.
Krel, meanwhile, placed the head on the table and grabbed his knees with all four arms, as he shrunk into himself and continued.
“No Aja, no Varvatos, or Mother, Mama, Papa, Luug, or Zadra.” He took a breath. “I’ve never really felt this alone before, but it really is just me left here, isn't it?”
The (what-Douxie-was-now-assuming-were) androids, patted him comfortingly on the back.
“Turn that frown upside down, kiddo!”
“Right!” the woman said. “And if you’re feeling blue, you could always just shoot them a quick little “hello!” on the telephone!”
“I guess so…" He sniffed. "But I don’t want them to know I couldn’t make it one night without them, they'll worry.” He stood, his voice getting more stern. “No! You know what! I made my choice to stay here. This is my home now and I’m going to make the most of it. Now, let’s get to work and try to figure out a way to reattach your head. I’m sure we’ve got some spare parts around here somewhere. I wonder if we have any spare transdimensional processors laying around in the back?”
“That’s the spirit!”
“Ooh! Family project! I'll get the camera!”
Douxie moved out of the window and brushed some of the stray leaves off his jacket just as soon as the three vanished through a portal in the wall.
So the rest of the aliens had left world, it would seem? The one who remained seemed to be having a little trouble adjusting too. Boy, did he know how that felt. After Merlin disappeared, he and Archie basically had no place in Camelot anymore. They had a centuries long list of chores to do, but after that— what? The projects would keep his mind at ease for the most part, but eventually that got boring. He was lucky to have Archie, and to hang out with Zoe, and of course, lucky to make friends on his various travels across the globe.
“Maybe it’d be best to let him have the night to get his head together? Literally!?” Douxie stuffed his hands into his pocket after that and sighed as he walked away. “I wouldn’t want to bother him when he’s going through—” He motioned his hand at the direction of the house. “Whatever that was. He needs time to deal with his own problems without adding mine to the list. Merlin will just have to deal with it. Oh, I really hope Archie was able to find somebody though, or Merlin is going to be really unhappy. Like moreso than normal.” He made a face and shook his finger at himself. "I also need to stop talking to myself so much."
He looked down and checked his phone before letting out an aggravated groan.
"I've got to get back. What are the odds I'll bump into somebody along the way?"
He chuckled to himself and then rubbed a bit at the back of his head. Those odds weren't all that great, no matter how he tried to fool himself.
*BLIP!*
A sudden text message blipped onto his phone and his eyes went wide after staring down at the screen.
"Oh fuzzbuckets! I forgot about Zoe!"
Their plans! With all the chasing Shadow Mephits and then Merlin showing back up after nearly 900 years, he had completely blanked on their plans. Already, he took off towards the bookstore to meet up with everyone else, rapidly typing and re-typing excuses into his phone that might save his skin from Zoe's wrath while also apologizing enough to ease his own guilt. She'd understand though... mostly? Better to keep it vague and just text back an "I'll explain everything later". This was something she'd want to hear about in person, no doubt.
One thing was for sure, the night wasn't turning out like he'd planned. A lot of things weren't turning out like he'd planned actually. This was just the start of it all too. It was about to be a long night, wasn't it?
Well, hopefully Merlin would be easier to please after almost a millennia long nap, right? A nagging feeling in the back of his head told him he probably shouldn't get his hopes up for that though.
He took a last look at his phone, as he was met on the streets by Archie, two children, and a massive hairy troll. Douxie said some silent thanks to his familiar and any deities of luck that might be around before coming up on the tail end of their conversation.
"Sorry, this is a lot to process! Pets can talk? The world is ending? Again?"
"Not the best timing, I know, but we need your help all the same."