#i am still filled with rage that i ever had to waste brain space memorizing the unit circle

[sergeantsporks]

Swapped

Ch 3/5

Ch 1, Ch 2

Ao3

Or read under the cut

It was a small patch on his knee, like a scrape, but it wasn’t a scrape. It was stone. Blue stone.

And suddenly, worries and anxieties he hadn’t felt for CENTURIES came flooding back in a rush.

What if they saw?

What if they found out?

What if they realized that he wasn’t the real Hisirdoux?!

And now, now there were new anxieties, things he hadn’t worried about centuries ago.

What if they hated him?

What if they turned him away?

What if they never wanted to see him again?

What if Zoe’s face curled up in disgust as she realized she’d been kissing a troll mouth. Worse, a changeling mouth?

What was going on?! Why, why now, after centuries of no problems, was he turning to stone? He hadn’t once transformed back to his troll form—what if he was supposed to do that every so often, or it would start to leak through?

There had to be someone he could contact to find out. The Janus order—they’d know. Right?

So he snuck out.

When Archie’s snoring started, and Zoe’s breathing slowed down to the little puffs he knew meant she was deep in dreamland.

Douxie felt a weird ache in his chest at the thought of not hearing those little sounds again. He needed to fix this problem. Now. Before it spread.

So he crept through the streets, almost certain that he’d seen a bar with a sign that had two faces on it. Two faces. The Janus order. It was worth a shot, right?

So he went inside. There was only one solitary bar girl, and she gave him an odd glance. “Sorry. We’re closed tonight, kiddo. Reserved.”

“Gunmar,” he blurted. He didn’t know any changeling code, because that wasn’t one of the things Dictatious—Dictatious, he hadn’t thought about the many-eyed troll for so long—had told him. So he just blurted out the first thing that popped into his head.

The bar girl’s eyes widened. “Oh! Sorry. What’s the problem?”

“I’m turning to stone,” Douxie babbled, “I’m turning into stone, but I’m not trying to transform, it just happened, and I don’t know what’s going on!”

“Ooookay, you’re obviously new to this. Slow down. Show me.”

Douxie rolled up his pant leg to show her the blue stone spot on his knee. “Why’s it doing that?!”

She peered closely at it. “If I had to guess? I’d say your familiar scraped a knee. Weird. Normally the goblins take such good care of them.”

Douxie grabbed her sleeve as she turned to go. “How do I find out?”

She blinked at him. “Wow. You really don’t know anything about being a changeling, huh? Okay. Look. You can check in on your familiar any time you like. You just gotta.” She screwed her face up, made a retching noise, and spat at a mirror. Douxie jumped back.

“That’s disgusting!”

“Nah, look!”

Douxie steeled himself to look at the glob of spit on the mirror, and saw that it had transformed into an image of a little baby girl, asleep in a crib. “That’s…”

“My familiar. Cute little thing, isn’t she?” The image faded away. “You try.”

Douxie’s spitting wasn’t nearly as impressive as hers, but the image appeared. Hisirdoux was in a stasis trap, a bloody scrape on his knee. “That’s him!”

“An adult? Wow. You are a weird little changeling, aren’t you?”

“I wonder what happened…”

“Well, usually the familiars are babies. They don’t go anywhere. Yours probably just got loose, and fell before they got control of him again. If it’s really bothering you…” The changeling looked around. “Go to America. Arcadia Oaks. The leader of the Order lives there, Waltholomew Stricklander. He might be able to figure out what’s going on. Watch out, though, there’s a troll colony living there, and it is the homeplace of the trollhunter. Good luck.”

Douxie nodded and slipped away, creeping back inside the house he shared with Archie and Zoe before they woke up. It was just one scraped knee—like the changeling bar girl had said, it was probably just a problem with doing the sleeping spell on someone a little older. Nothing to worry about.

Until he woke up with thick lines of stone lashed across his chest.

No. No, no, no, no!

Douxie touched the stone lines delicately. They were just the right distance apart for a set of Gum-Gum claws. He yanked a shirt over his head, fast before Zoe or Archie saw. This was getting out of hand. He needed to get in contact with Stricklander.

Xxx

“America?” Archie asked, sounding slightly-disgusted, “Why America?”

Zoe grabbed his hand. “New York?! I’ve heard things about New York—we could be vigilantes! Do you know the crime rates there, Douxie? And we have to go to at least one rock concert, promise me!”

“We’re already vigilantes,” Douxie laughed, “Just the magical kind. What, you want to add muggers to our resume? No, not New York. I’ve got somewhere else in mind. Arcadia Oaks. Supposedly, it has a troll colony. And where there’s a colony of trolls, there’s bound to be… pest problems.” He gave Zoe’s hand a squeeze, some of her excitement leeching into him. And it was exciting! Leaving Europe for a totally new continent? Once he got this whole familiar thing sorted out, there wasn’t any reason not to have fun. “But I promise that we will go to New York and see a rock concert first.”

“Yessssss!”

Xxx

“Okay. Our first order of business ought to be looking for stable employment and—”

Douxie and Zoe both ignored Archie, hopping off of the bus and tearing around the city. “It’s so sunny here,” Zoe complained, “It’s like Italy all over again!”

“Oh, you liked Italy,” Douxie replied, “It is a bit bright, but—”

“Hey! What are you two kids doing out of school?!”

Douxie jumped as a police officer approached them. “Oh—we’re… new in town?”

The officer snorted. “I can tell.”

“I’m an adult. Actually.” Zoe offered, “I don’t have to be in school.” She pulled out an ID—when had she gotten a driver’s license?!

The officer squinted at it, then shrugged. “Alright, Miss Zoe, you’re off the hook. What about Skippy here?” He jabbed a thumb at Douxie.

“Wha—Skippy?!”

“Him?” Zoe said with a grin. “Oh, no. He’s a minor. Tiny little baby. Ship him off to school.”

The officer nodded, turning to Douxie. “And which school are you enrolled in?”

“Uhhhhh Aaarcaaadia Oaaaksss…. Academy?” Douxie tried, shooting Zoe a dirty look.

“Haven’t gotten your uniform yet? Alright, come on, in the squad car, I’ll take you to school. And you, Miss Zoe, try to be a better influence on him, will you?”

The officer dragged Douxie into the car, and Douxie mouthed “I’ll kill you” at a snickering Zoe. Actually, though, this was a good opportunity, while he was separated. “Hey, do you know anyone named Waltholomew Stricklander?” he asked the cop as he drove through the streets.

“No. Odd name. Closest we’ve got is a Walter Strickler. Teaches at the other school. Why?”

“Uhm. Just… looking for an old family friend. Thanks anyway.” Just his luck that there really was an Arcadia Oaks Academy, he thought gloomily as the car pulled into a school. He got marched to the principal’s office.

“Are you missing a new student? Possibly an exchange student?”

Right. The principal would say no, he’d make a getaway, and then he’d hunt Zoe down and throw her into the nearest body of water.

“As a matter of fact, we are! We didn’t have time to get his uniform, but…” A schedule, a map, and a stack of books was thrust into Douxie’s hands. “You should be in Calculus right now, young man.”

No way! Seriously? Douxie gave him his best apologetic grin. “Yes sir!”

Great. Now he just had to figure out what calculus was.

Douxie would have bolted, but the cop was watching him all the way to the classroom, so he edged inside. The door creaked far more than he thought was necessary, and the teacher turned to face him.

“May I help you?”

Douxie brushed his bangs back behind his ears nervously. “Um. Hello? I’m… new here?”

“Ahhhh, the transfer student! We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“Heh. Well, try telling the cops that.”

“Hm, yes. Set your things down, and then why don’t you come up to the board and fill in the radian coordinates on this unit circle!”

Douxie could speak elvish, orcish, trollish, a number of human languages, and decipher wizard code, but he didn’t have any idea what she’d just said. He scooted ever-so-slowly to the back of the classroom and set his books down, then shuffled to the front of the classroom, taking the marker from the teacher like it was a poisonous snake. The giant circle covered in indecipherable markings loomed up at him. He hesitantly wrote a 2 on one of the blank spaces, earning a snort from someone in the front row. He ignored them and kept writing random numbers in the blanks. More snickers made his ears burn, and finally he capped the marker and set it down.

“Alright, class, hands up if you think he’s right.”

No hands went up.

“Sit back down, please.”

Douxie trudged back to his seat in what was possibly the most shameful walk of his entire life while the teacher spouted more calculus nonsense that went over his head. He tried to pay attention for a bit—he really did—but it became pretty obvious pretty fast that he was missing about 4 years worth of previous math that he should know in order to understand this, so he put his head down on the desk, praying for it all to end.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that punk’s dead?” someone else in the back hissed to him with a snicker, “Where’s your uniform?”

“Hank, shut up!” someone else responded, “I’m pretty sure he’s one of the public school kids sneaking in! His accent is so obviously faked!”

“My accent is not—” Douxie shook his head. What did it matter? He was a centuries old magician who knew arcane secrets of the universe that the Calculus teacher could never hope to understand. The opinion of a few regular human teenagers shouldn’t have mattered.

It shouldn’t have.

At lunch, he hopped the fence and ran for it, beelining for the public school. The academy kids whooped and cheered as he ran away. Excited that something interesting was happening? Or glad that he in particular was leaving? Not that it mattered to him.

He had to check in on this Walter Strickler, just in case. And sure enough, when he peered in the office windows, he could spot magical items lying about with regular things. Douxie cracked open the window and slipped inside. Wow. This guy really did have quite the collection of magic books. It wouldn’t hurt to read a few while he was waiting, would it?

He was halfway through his third book and the last school bell had rung for the day when he heard footsteps echoing down the hallway. He hastily shoved the books back in their spots and waited, suddenly realizing that if Walter Strickler wasn’t a changeling, he was going to have to talk his way out of a nasty breaking and entering situation.

But when the door did open, Douxie could recognize the changeling in him—it was something about the way he carried himself, like he had centuries of experience.

“Hey there,” Douxie said casually, “Got a little changeling question for you.”

Strickler didn’t seem too concerned by his presence, fiddling with a pen. “You are drawing far too much attention to yourself. Getting dragged off by the police? Skipping school? And that accent-! What kind of a sad excuse for a changeling are you?”

“No one exactly gave me a crash course in being a changeling!” Douxie protested, “And besides, I’m a changeling masquerading as a wizard masquerading as a human. I think I’m doing pretty well, all things considered!”

“The special assignment. Hisirdoux. I thought you were a myth. What with having no way of contacting you and all.”

“Uh—well—yeah. Not the point. I’ve got a bit of a situation. My familiar seems to keep injuring himself somehow? I want to contact Dictatious. Make sure everything is alright.”

Strickler snapped the pen shut. “Contact the darklands?!”

“Uh… yeah?”

“No one can do that! Do you think I’d be searching tirelessly for the eyestone if I could simply ring for Gunmar on the telephone?!”

“How come? Changelings seem to get in and out pretty easily.”

“It’s not the same. I’m afraid I cannot help you—it may be frustrating, but you will simply have to operate on less than ideal information. And, ah, Hisirdoux? Do try not to draw any more attention to yourself.”

Xxx

“You are not funny,” Douxie grumbled as he pushed open the door to some kind of tech shop.

Zoe grinned, hopping off of her place on a bench and going on tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Awww, did someone not have a good day at school?

“No kisses. According to you, I’m a minor and you’re an adult.”

“Don’t be irritated at Zoe,” Archie piped up, “I’m the one who enrolled you in school.”

“You did what?!”

“There are things I cannot teach you, Douxie!”

“Like calculus?! Get real, Arch, I’m never going to need calculus! Besides, when am I going to have the time?! I’ll need a job, and—wait a second, why are you talking in here?”

“Oh, this place?” Zoe said affectionately, “This is run by hedge wizards. Aaaaand there’s no customers at the moment, so we’re good. I have a job here now, actually. They’ll be able to use more money for their magical projects now that they won’t be paying an electric bill anymore.”

“Okay. Fantastic. School, Archie?!”

“Just stick it out for a year, alright? You’re listed as a senior, so you’ll graduate, and you can do whatever you want after that.”

“Assuming I can graduate! I don’t know any of this stuff, Arch! I’m going to fail everything!”

“You’re a quick learner. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’ve spent centuries doing nothing but bouncing around the world hunting monsters. I’m sure one year of schooling will pass in a flash.

#i am still filled with rage that i ever had to waste brain space memorizing the unit circle #toa #tales of arcadia #my oc #my writing #my fanfiction #swapped #changeling!douxie au #dalmar #douxie