Day 1: Humanity
Jim wants his humanity back more than anything, but it may require a price Aja isn’t willing to pay.
@emmy-puff
Aja would be the first one to admit that she was still learning about earth; but even she knew that this was a place of power.
The water radiated unnatural light, preventing them from seeing what laid in its depths. It almost seemed like someone cut a hole in the cave floor, allowing cerulean light to poor in.
Aja dug her fingers into Jim’s shoulder, he was strong enough that if he really wanted to, she couldn’t stop him.
But she was still going to try.
“You don’t have to be doing this,” she urged “We can find another way,”
Jim kept his eyes fixed on the cave pool “There is no other way, we’ve talked to Merlin and Morgana and Nimue….if there’s any way, this is it,”
Aja darted around, placing herself between Jim and the pool “But you heard what Nimue said, the potion cannot be undone, this water will only change you further, and into what we do not know,”
Jim meet her gaze without flinching “That’s a risk I’m willing to take,”
Biting back a howl of frustration, Aja grabbed his shoulders with all four hands “Jim, Merlin may have turned you into a troll, but you were still you. This. Is. Different.” she gestured toward the glowing pool “If you go in there, you don’t know what you will come out as,”
Aja took a step closer, she would beg him if that’s what it took “Jim, you could lose yourself,”
Jim sighed defeatedly “Aja….I need to do this,”
“No you don’t!” she said only a little too harshly “I’ve already told you, human or troll doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter to anyone. Myself, Toby, Claire, the trolls, your mother, we are loving you no matter what you look like,”
“It’s not that,” he sidestepped her to look down at the water “I need to be able to stand in the sun,”
“But you have a stone for that,”
“It’s not just the sun, it’s--” he struggled for the right words “Back before all….this, omelettes were one my favorite things to make, I loved trying different flavor combinations, making one for my mom each morning….and now….”
He turned to look at her, in the entire time Aja had known Jim she had never seen him look so hopeless “I can’t even remember what an omelette tastes like,”
For the first time since coming here Aja found herself at a loss for words.
Jim continued “Ever since the eternal night it’s been nothing but Trollhunter business, day and night, and every day I feel like I’m forgetting a little bit more about my life when I was human,”
The luminescent water reflected his trollish features as he stepped right up to the edge “And with a troll’s lifespan….I’m going to outlive everyone, human and troll and you, if I stay like this,”
He turned back towards Nimue’s pool “I’m not scared of not being able to go in the sun or being made of living stone; I’m terrified that one day, centuries from now, I’ll have forgotten everything that’s important to me. How my mom raised me, growing up with Toby, you…..”
His voice began to crack “It might not be today, or tomorrow, but Aja, if I don’t do this I will lose myself,”
And just like that Aja had no rebuttal to give.
It would be different if Jim was doing it for his friends or his mother or even for her.
But he was doing this for himself.
She rushed forward and threw her arms around him “Jim, I promise, no matter what this magic does to you, no matter what you become, I will be the first thing you see when you come out,”
Jim returned the hug “Thank you Aja,”
This time she could hear the fear in his voice.
Soon, far too soon, he gently pried one of her hands of his shoulder. As much as Aja wanted to hold him tighter, she let go.
After pausing and steeling himself with a deep breath, Jim stepped into the pool.
It took everything she had to keep from jumping forward and pulling him back.
A few more steps and Jim was up to his knees in the shimmering, blue water, then his waist, then his shoulders, and eventually, even the tips of his horns vanished beneath the pool’s surface.
Aja couldn’t breathe, the surface of the pool was completely still. If she hadn’t watched him walk in herself she never would have thought Jim was down there.
She waited in silence for a minute, one minute became two.
And then she saw ripples on the far side.
Aja snapped into action like a tensely coiled spring, racing around to the other side just in time to see a hand breach the surface.
Using her full strength, she grabbed the hand and pulled.
The hand was attached to Jim, who promptly collapsed on the cave floor. For a brief instant he looked exactly the same as when he stepped into Nimue’s pool.
Then his whole body was enveloped by white hot, crackling lightning bolts.
Aja was forced to let go of his hand and step back. She couldn’t place where but she had seen this before. This energy surrounding him, like a chrysalis; it reminded her of a….of a….
Of a changeling.
The lightning dissipated and Jim; small, squishy, human Jim, was revealed.
Aja rushed forward and scooped Jim into her arms, he was so much smaller now. She propped his torso up with two arms and cupped his face with a third.
The pool had worked in the best way possible, by turning a troll into a changeling, but was he still himself?
Was Jim still Jim?
Slowly, ever so slowly, Jim’s eyes fluttered open.
Bleary and unfocused, his eyes met hers.
“Jim….” Aja could only manage a hoarse whisper “Are you still….you?”
Jim gave her a weak smile.
“Yep,” he wheezed “I’m me,”
A squishy, five fingered hand came up to his jaw and entwined its fingers with hers “Thanks for being here when I got out,”
The only way Aja could release the overwhelming combination of joy and relief and exhilaration she felt in that moment was in the form of a loud, ugly sob.
“You are not doing this again,” she choked out “Ever.”
That got a weary chuckle out of him “I think I’ll be able to manage that,”
