Thinking about William and what might have happened to him during the Bad Timeline. I was wondering how long he might have survived for as part of the resistance.
But then I remembered. William isn't there when the invasion happens. He's in another dimension, another world, on a year's long mission that won't end until a few months after the day of the invasion.
So what does that change?
Well. I don't think Will ever makes it home.
---
The krang descend upon the world, and for the first few days, Draxum is hopeful that they can win.
But his hope is shattered with the wards around the hidden city. His home is invaded and overcome faster than he can think. There’s no time to send a message to Will, let alone bring him home. Draxum wouldn't dare bring him back to this ravaged world, anyway.
But he can't leave the way stones as they are, either. The risk is too great. The Krang with the power to hop between dimensions would put countless other worlds at risk.
It would put Will at risk.
There's no time to alter the spell, either. To make it a one-way portal and give Will a way back home. There's no time for anything!
Anything, except complete and total destruction.
A well aimed spell severs the enchantment on the way stones. Then, with the help of a few vines, the stones themselves are broken down to rubble. Draxum hurriedly layers a few mundane spells over the area, ones you might find anywhere in the hidden city, to disguise any lingering traces of the portal's mystic signature.
It's the work of mere minutes. By the time he's done, there's nothing but bits of loose gravel and some softly glowing moss from a juvenile ambient light spell.
He forbids Huggin and Munnin from ever mentioning Will. The risks are too great, and the reward, Will's return, would be no reward at all. He locks all memories of his lost son deep inside himself, destroys any physical reminders of him, and does his best to forget.
He tells himself it's better this way.
He hopes he's right.
William, for his part, continues the last few months of his mission blissfully unaware.
But eventually the day comes that he's finally meant to return home. He treks back to the way stone, hidden deep in the forests of this world, and with a weary sigh and eager smile he places his key upon its surface, and draws his sigil.
Nothing happens.
He tries again, and again, and once more just to be sure. It's not the first time the way stones have malfunctioned, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when they do. He huffs, dropping his bags and himself on the mossy forest floor as he waits for his father to send a signal, as he has every time before.
With no signal by the next day, he tries his key again. Then again at noon, and twice more around dusk. And still, nothing.
He waits another day. And another. And another. A week. A month. Two. Three.
Days blend together.
Frustration gives way to anger, then to worry, until finally settling on a deep ache that clings to his bones. He's loathe to leave the area, to risk missing something, but after almost a year it's become clear that whatever problem is afflicting his way back home won't be resolved by sitting around.
He stashes his bags inside the crude hut he's built over the past few months, and sets back out once more. This world is almost barren of mystic energy, and the people who can wield it are few and far between, but they're still out there.
He travels roads that had become familiar during his stay, and forges ahead on paths yet undiscovered. He taps into existing contacts and finds new mystics and listens to every rumour he can.
Every few months he travels back to the stone, just in case.
Years pass like this, and Will's cloaking brooch begins to flicker and, eventually, fail. The mystics required to power it are entirely foreign to this world. There is no one here to fix it.
He returns to his little hut in the woods for the final time.
He may be unable to travel freely anymore, but that doesn't mean he gives up. Everyday, he tries again. First thing in the morning, and last thing before bed, he tries his key. It becomes routine, an intrinsic part of his new life, one that he continues doing long after the glow fades from his key and the way stone becomes indistinguishable from any other boulder in the forest.
Will spends the rest of his life this way, known to the people of this world as nothing but the rumours of a strange creature in the woods.
