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“You won’t believe what I’ve found in the canal, Jimbo!”
His friend’s eyes, shining with excitement. His braces, glistening in the sun.
(“Only four more years!” Tobes told Jim four years ago. Happily. Hopefully. While they both rode their bikes into the vast unknown, sun guiding their way.)
(“This human has a mouth full of gold!” the Quagawumps once said, poking and proding, seeing Tobes for their king. Their god. They knew even gods crushed and failed.)
(Not Tobes)
“Are you hiding some secret power from me that I don’t know about?” You wouldn't believe me if I told you. “How did you know I would find something in the canal, Jimbo?”
“Yeah, I just had a hunch, you know.” Jim shrugs and smiles, wearily yet proudly.
(“The amulet saw strength in you. The strength of your heart.” Merlin’s vambraces glittered in the warm light of the lamp, his gaze tired. “You need to become more than you are now if you want to protect who you love.”)
(“You’re asking me to leave it all behind?”)
“Do you maybe know what this is then?”
“Some sort of amulet?” Jim wonders as Tobes twiddles with the amulet in his hands.
(“It looks like an amulet,” he himself once said, twisting the amulet in his own hands, marking the beginning of their adventure.)
The corner of his friend’s lips twitches in amusement. “Yeah, I thought that too. It said my name. I thought maybe it was a prank or something.”
“Did it say anything else? Did it… do anything else?”
(“For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command,” Jim whispered, for the first time. Then, the light. Then, his body floated. Then, he felt the most powerful he had ever been.)
“It’s just an amulet, an inanimate object. Amulets don’t do anything, Jimbo,” Tobes laughs as Jim tears his gaze away.
Just an amulet that took everything from me
(“An amulet can’t choose someone, it’s an amulet!”)
(“Why did you choose me? To hurt everyone?”)
(“I am the Trollhunter, amulet or not”)
Later, when Tobes calls him, ecstatic, to tell him that the amulet, indeed, did something, Jim smiles and looks up at the sky from his window. From the window of his home. The place he should call home but he can’t
His home, he’s home, and everyone is safe. Everyone is free from the weight of the memories only Jim carries.
I carry the weight of the world in my head, and it keeps me up at night
As they set foot on the magical stairs, followed by Blinky and AAARRRGH, Jim watches the way Tobes’ eyes widen in amazement.
Trollmarket. Bustling with trolls.
The Heartstone, not destroyed. The living Heartstone, it is glowing brightly at the center of the place, emanating warmth that Jim can feel. It can’t warm away the cold emptiness in his chest though
“Is this where you guys live? Awesome!!!” Tobes picks up his phone and starts taking pictures of literally everything.
The Heartstone. The crowds of trolls. Fluorescent signboards. The broken television. The two familiar figures in dark robes.
Jim blinks.
Then squints. Then blinks again and shakes his head to get the illusion from his eyes.
It doesn’t go away.
Then, his ears catch a deep, familiar voice, speaking unfamiliar tongue.
Not trollish. Not English.
Jim’s eyes snap open.
The two trolls stand chatting nearby while other trolls pay them no mind. As if their presence in Trollmarket is completely normal.
Justified.
“Pretty amazing, huh, Jimbo?” Tobes snickers at his opened mouth and wide eyes that have nothing to do with what Tobes thinks it does.
Jim closes his mouth and just nods. He contemplates staying quiet but, seeing how Tobes doesn’t refrain from asking a billion questions, says, softly, “Blinky, who… are they?”
What are they doing in Trollmarket?
Why isn’t everybody appalled and disgusted by their presence?
Why don’t the other trolls curse and sneer at them? Threaten them? Promise to crush their bones to ash? Call them “Impure” and “traitors”, and treat them like dogs, and wish them a fate worse than death?
“Ah, that,” Blinky nods and looks completely unperturbed, “are the Changelings, James. I will tell you and master Tobias more in due time.”
Why are the Changelings down in Trollmarket???
How is that possible?
“Changelings, huh?” Tobes pipes in. “What can they change into?”
“Changelings have the ability to wear a human guise, master Tobias,” Blinky answers. “Significantly useful when one needs to know what is happening out in the world during the day.”
Tobes’ jaw opens wider than ever before. “Whaaaat??? Trolls and humans at the same time?!! This can’t get more fascinating!”
Nobody was this enthusiastic in my previous world when speaking about the Changelings, Jim thinks.
Out loud, he wonders, “So they also live here? With the other trolls? They don’t mind having them here?”
“Of course not,” Blinky says. “How can one mind if the Changelings were the ones who helped us seal the remaining Gumm-Gumms away?”
They walk deeper into the caves, and Jim glances at the Changelings one last time. Just then, the taller Changeling looks his way, his golden eyes shining bright, just like the sun.
(The same eyes that were gazing at him when the winter winds enveloped his freezing body. When death was so close. When Jim was on his knees, begging for the Changeling not to go.)
(When the said Changeling said goodbye.)
This is why I had to go back in time
Because the truth is that I can’t say goodbye
Something stirs painfully in Jim’s chest. He forces himself to smile, and waves his hand at the Changeling before turning away.
How long will it take for him to let go of his past?
How can he make things right this time?
Jim sighs and shakes his head. “How” is a question for another time. Right now he should be feigning surprise and astonishment, walking down the ground of Trollmarket, where no human has stepped on, and where he walked down countless times.