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rosebloodcat · 11 months

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TTWTWK: In Which Blinky has a Crisis (Or Three)

In 1995, around the start of spring, Blinkous Galadrigal went missing.

The same morning that the scholarly troll vanished, a man was found unconscious in a back alley wearing nothing but a set of ill-fitting, brown overalls and was rushed to the Arcadia Oaks Hospital.

Chapter Summary:

Blinky/James sits in the kitchen while have a crisis (or maybe three), gets (re?) acquainted with a good friend, and names are discussed.

AN: Heads up, around the start of this, Blinky's spiraling a little bit and repeating thoughts/phrases. He's a bit more panicked than he realizes about all this and it shows in how he’s thinking. I wanted to warn folks in case that was alarming for anyone!

Ao3 Link

Meddling with time magic was unpredictable. It was one of those things that everyone knew, to some degree, even if they never openly talked about it. It was one of those things that seemed obvious, at least when discussing the concept theoretically.

This was why Blink (James?) felt like he shouldn't have been as surprised as he was by this bizarre turn of events.

He sat in his Norman's the kitchen, clutching a mug of tea in his hands as he stared blankly out the window at the pitch-dark sky outside.

The Krohnisfere was supposed to have only sent Master Jim back in time. And just his memories, at that.

Blinky shouldn't have been the one waking up in the middle of the night with a head full of memories of the future, as a human no less, before Master Jim had even been born. (If he was doing his mental math correctly.)

But he did remember and when combined with his memories of "now"...

He remembered that he'd gone missing for ten years, roughly eleven years before he'd met Jim. No one had known what had happened to him, or where he'd been, or even how he'd come back from it.

It seems that, after I'd finally stopped searching for an answer, it's been freely handed to me, He thought, carefully sipping the cooling tea. There was still a small part of him that was adamant that this was some insane dream he was experiencing. That he would wake up in the ruins of Arcadia, everything exactly as he had last seen them.

But the warmth of the mug in his hands, the smell and taste of the tea, the tired itch in his eyes; it all pointed to this being very real.

He was in the past, during the period he'd been missing, sitting in a human kitchen drinking tea, as a human.

He was a human.

The reason no one, not even Kanjigar, had been able to find him for so long had been because he had, somehow, become human.

He had woken in a human hospital, as a human with amnesia. He had been dubbed James and kept the name because he hadn’t known his own name.

James Lake was the name of Jim’s father. He was James Lake and he was dating Barbara.

He was Jim’s father. The same father that disappeared on Jim’s fifth birthday.

He would father Jim.

Him.

The first human troll hunter’s father.

For a half-second, Blinky/James wished he was drinking something stronger than tea right then. He couldn’t think of what, exactly, he wanted instead and he didn’t really care. Just something stronger. (Being Not-Sober was very tempting right then.)

It made sense, in an insane way, once he corralled his thoughts into some semblance of order.

The first (second?) time he’d become human, he’d felt oddly… Comfortable? In both the form and amongst the humans, where any other troll probably would have felt strange and alien. (He hadn’t been totally comfortable after the change, but not as much as he probably should have.)

Yes, he’d let his curiosity get the better of him many times, but he hadn’t felt completely out-of-place while in that state. Looking back, he would have thought of the experience as being familiar. Not completely unknown to him.

(Barbara’s rough introduction hadn’t colored his perception as much as it should have. She had felt familiar, he’d thought it had been from her actions reminding him of a troll mother protecting her den, but… He had worried over her, after finally meeting her. Meeting her again?)

He’d always thought Arrrgh’s comments on the two smelling similar had been about Jim having an ink-and-paper smell to him as well. Likely from spending so much time around the written word while in school. A mark of the young human being a learning sort as well.

And, during the pilgrimage to New Jersey, more than a few of the trolls with them had joked about how similar Jim and he had been. “Like Father, Like Son” and vice versa.

He’d thought of Jim like a son then, so it had felt like a compliment. Something to be proud of.

But now, with this new context, it seemed he was mistaken and there was far more to those observations than he’d thought.

(Because Jim was his son. A son he’d forgotten he’d had. A human son. His Son. Great Gronka Morka, he was Jim’s father.)

He took another sip of the lukewarm tea.

Now came the penultimate question, what was he supposed to do with this information?

Should he try to play along with how the timeline went last time? Pretend that his world hadn’t been turned upside-down and act like nothing was out of the ordinary? Or…

Or should he take a card from his future son Young Jim’s book and try to use the foreknowledge he’d been granted?

Time was unpredictable, even the smallest changes could cause things to spiral wildly out of control. There was a dangerous potential in changing the course of time.

But oh, was it a tempting thought.

How many could have been saved with just a bit of warning? More time to prepare? A chance to be ready for what was coming?

A few extra protections here, a few warnings there, so many little things had been ignored or dismissed before that could make a world of difference now!

Soft, five-fingered hands tightened around the mug.

The problem was, how was he supposed to make them happen?

He was a human.

He had no way to contact Trollmarket, no way to find Kanjigar (he was alive. Kanjigar was alive), no way to prove his foreknowledge without them thinking he was a changeling trying to trick them.

(Jim, his son, hadn’t even been born yet.)

After spending so much time doing something, taking action, the idea of not even trying just… Didn’t sit well with him.

He couldn’t sit back and watch, he had to do something. But what?

What could he…

“Jamsie?”

Blinky/James jumped in his seat, twisting around to look at the figure standing in the doorway (and almost unseating himself in the process).

Norman, the tall, dark-skinned man that he shared this house with, squinted blearily at him from the hall.

“It’s almost four in the morning, what are you doing up?”

He fumbled for an answer, his head still a mess from the Decade of memories that had been dumped into his head that morning.

(This man was Blinky/James’ friend. A good friend. Someone who gave him a chance, and helped him get back on his feet. Someone he never got to meet again… What had happened to him? )

“Oh! Ah, N-Norman! Couldn’t sleep, I’m fine. Just fine!” The tall man leveled a flat and very unimpressed look at him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Pull the other one Jamsie, it’s got bells on it,” Norman said dryly. “I’d like to think that, after living with you for this long, I can tell when you ain’t being honest with me. Now what’s the actual answer?”

Norman stepped fully into the room, slowly meandering over as he watched Blinky/James stumble over his words. Trying to find an answer good enough for him. He let out a sigh.

“Jamsie, I may be a weirn, but I’d like to think I’m someone you can talk to if something’s up. I can’t guarantee I’ll believe it, but you know that I’ll listen.”

The troll-turned-human hesitated.

(Weirn, a class of witch. But Norman was a good man. A kind one.)

(James trusted him. And Blinky could probably learn to.)

Norman knew about the amnesia he'd suffered from, so perhaps that would be the best place to start.

"I- I've finally remembered. My name, my-my everything…"

So he told him. Told him that he was actually a troll by the name of Blinkous Galadrigal, Blinky to his friends, who'd been trying to find some materials that had been lost on the surface world. That he still didn't know what had caused his transformation but, if he had to guess, it may have been due to one of the items he'd gone to fetch (which may have also been responsible for his memory loss). That he'd lived in Trollmarket, which was hidden beneath Arcadia and accessed with a special stone via the bridges of the canal.

That he had no idea how to contact his friends to tell them that he was alive or prove that he was the real thing. That if he tried he would run the risk of being found by the terrible Gumm-Gumm Bular (oh Deya, Bular was alive too) or a changeling in his service or by goblins or something else equally dreadful and dangerous to his current, very human self.

And once he'd started talking, the rest of the story spilled out as well.

That he remembered more.That he knew about things that would happen in the future.

That he would marry his current girlfriend, Barbara (fierce, brave, tolerant Barbara), and they would have a wonderful little boy they would dub Jim. That he would vanish on Jim's fifth birthday and be found wandering the sewers in a daze by Kanjigar without the memories of his time as a human. He'd be brought back to Trollmarket and never know about the human family he'd left behind. Years would pass and he would only meet them again due to the Amulet of Daylight choosing Jim to be the new trollhunter, with no idea that the young boy was his son.

He told his current friend (whom he never got to meet a second time) everything that followed after that. Every triumph, every hurdle, every loss, and tragedy that came. About how Trollkind itself had changed and grown thanks to the wonderful, amazing, unfaltering young man that became part of their lives. (He'd never noticed when he'd stood up and started pacing the room, gesturing wildly as he spoke, unable to remain sitting in the wake of the emotions spilling out beside the story.)

All the pain and suffering his son had gone through trying to help the world.

He'd laughed and cried and raged and mourned in the dark kitchen while Norman sat at the table, calm and steady and listening.

By the end of it, the barest beams of the dawn were filtering in through the windows and Blinky/James felt exhausted and thoroughly rung out. But he also felt a lot lighter than when he'd first woken up with over a decade of memories flooding his mind.

From his seat, Norman let out a gusty exhale.

"Well, that's a lot more than I was expecting. Feel any better now that you let it out?" Blinky/James nodded, slumping back into his seat and grabbing his now-cold tea. Norman hummed.

"I knew trolls were a thing, even if I never had the pleasure of meeting any before. So I can confirm that ain't you being crazy and that I believe you about it.” He looked over at the troll-turned-human with a serious face, the sort reserved for clients who were in over their heads and they could both tell that they genuinely needed help. “I’m on your side though. I want to help you, even if this feels really… Strange, on my end. Tell me what you need, what you want help with, and I’ll do what I can."

Norman scrubbed a hand over his face with a sigh. "Geeze, the way you were acting earlier makes a lot more sense now. A ruddy existential crisis at four in the morning, what a way to start the day…"

Yes, an “existential crisis” certainly fit how he was handling all of this. Blinky/James let out an exhausted hum, staring into the dredges of his tea.

“So…” Norman started idly tapping his fingers on the table. “Which should I be calling you by, now?”

“Come again?”

“Which name?” he clarified, looking over at him. “Which name do you want me to use? Should I start calling you Blinkous? Or would you rather I keep using James?”

Blinky/James stared uncomprehendingly at him. He let out an amused huff.

“Alright, identity is still in question. Got it. I’ll try asking later.”

In question…

Norman had hit on that fairly well.

He was still confused (perhaps “disoriented” would be a better word?) despite being able to talk, to explain, everything that he’d remembered that morning. He was only just starting to get his feet under him, metaphorically, after the many years of memories and knowledge that had appeared.

In a way, his identity was in question. Even to himself.

So much of who he’d thought he was had been thrown into the air. Everything he’d built as James, and everything he knew as Blinky (both past and future) had put him at a crossroad. Which path was he meant to take?

(Was he Blinky? Or was he James?)

(Or, perhaps, there was a third option?)

“I don’t mind if you keep calling me Jamsie.”

AN: AHAHAHAHA IT'S DONE!!!

Hi folks, this was actually harder than I thought it would be to get out. Blinky/James has many feelings right now and it was hard to wriggle my way through them all to get some forward motion in there.

I've also finally dropped a teensy bit of info to allow me to reveal at least one of the fun crossover thingies I wanted to put into here! The Weirns!

I'm a tremendous fan of the Weirn Books by Svetlana Chmakova, especially the initial Nightschool books, and have been forever disappointed that I've never really seen other people talk about them. So I'm writing some stuff for it myself. Partially because it kinda bugs me how SMALL the world of magic feels in Trollhunters. With how vast and varied the world is, only ever seeing trolls, gnomes, wizards, and a few aliens feels like just a splash in a pond that should be much deeper.

So I'm going to try to expand it all in a way that (I hope) makes everything flow together in a fun way without messing them up.

Plus, it gives more stuff for Blinky to have a crisis over.

There's a reason Blinky's letting Norman keep calling him "Jamsie". Part of it is the identity thing, but it's also that the part of him that's James feels like it would be REALLY WEIRD if Norman stopped calling him that. And, to a small degree, he's not thinking of trying to go back to Trollmarket yet. So it's also a bit of a mindset thing.

If yall wanna ask questions for more info, drop off an ask.

#trollhunters #tales of arcadia #toa #3below #wizards #rise of the titans #rott #the weirn books #nightschool series #crossover #the things we thought we knew au #ttwtwk au #blinky is james lake au #blinkous galadrigal #blinky #ttwtwk norman #rosies writing #rosies fanfics

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