Chapter Text
The first time Jim’s will falters in the Darklands is his battle with the Nyarlagroth.
The giant, alien-looking serpent, poised hundreds of feet above him, with her countless teeth as long as he is tall and horns that could crush him in an instant, a body like a battering ram and an appetite that’s only matched her aggression. She hunts him down like everything else in this realm, every tip-toed footstep of his no quieter than the bang of a drum to her ears and his scent like a radiant trail. Protective of her young, hungry for sustenance, out for an unfamiliar taste.
In truth, Jim can’t say he’s surprised when he reaches out for his sword and it fails to respond. Its crimson glow heightens and falters like an old porch light, dragging an inch or two across the stone before ignoring him entirely. He can’t say he’s surprised when even despite all his trials and tribulations in the few months he’s been Trollhunter, the odds of escaping unscathed—or at all—seem a little slimmer now than usual. He can’t say he’s surprised that despite his shiny new upgrade, he doubts a helmet made of daylight will protect him well from being torn apart by the Nyarlagroth’s countless teeth, or from being smashed into the earth and killed on impact, or whatever other horrible ends he could meet at the hands, or teeth, of the beast.
His first instinct is to tug at the reins of his fear; never to tamp it down but always have control over it, but when his helmet fades and his amulet begins to flicker in response to his destabilizing will, the task quickly evolves into something much more daunting.
It hasn’t flickered like this since he’d been a rookie, a fifteen-year-old who’d faced his very first true battles with little notion of the control he needed over his emotions. The long days with ever-present threats have already done a number on his psyche, that he knows despite his constant drive to keep positive, and being thrown into a ring against a monster he’s never felled while being watched by a beast set on the destruction of his kind are certainly doing his weakening will no favors.
The sheer idea of being as unsteady in his emotions as his fifteen-year-old self does him none, either. He just has to pull himself together, control his fear rather than have it control him.
In the meantime, however, he’s just trying to stay away from the towering creature while working to pull himself together. No dice for the sword that isn’t responding to him, and the godforsaken oversized worm moves a hell of a lot faster than he does. She hits a lot harder, too, but overthinking the details only digs him further into the invisible pit of weakening will.
Best to think less about that part, then. If only Toby was here to lighten the mood.
Opting to think less about both how much he misses his friends and his dwindling odds of survival, he swerves out of the way when she appears out of one of the many holes in the ground, releasing a deep, bellowing growl in his face when he darts the other way.
Her roars greatly overshadow his startled yelps, escaping him in stuttering, sudden cries when she starts to toy with him; appearing in front of him one moment, opening her jaws wide and growling when he sprints the other direction to escape.
The Nyarlagroth keeps him running as fast as his legs will carry him, checking to his sides and over his shoulder with every moment that passes, until a single unfortunate misstep lands him on one of the metal grates and allows her to ambush him from below.
She rises like a firework and now he’s in the air, flailing helplessly for a split second until his hands and feet catch onto the gritty bones of her teeth, and then it takes every ounce of strength he has to not be crushed between them. He winces in pain and squints when the air rushes past him, bringing them closer and closer to the ground until he leaps from her grasp and clambers to the cold, hard ground.
In the distance, Gunmar growls and slams a fist against the armrest of his throne.
Not sparing a moment, Jim leaps up from the ground and darts behind a cluster of tall rocks, his throat running raw with each hurried breath of rancid Darklands air. The fact that she’s blind is an afterthought, as he’s much more focused on the whole “staying alive” goal.
A breathy yelp escapes him when her bright blue tongue sneaks behind the tall rock obscuring his form, its end shaped like a spade, reflecting its violent blue glow against the rivaling red of his Eclipse armor. He inches away from it, every muscle wired taut when the appendage hovers in front of his eyes, then trails an agonizingly slow line across his face—leaving a cold trail of slimy saliva coating his cheeks as he holds his breath and a shudder rattles his body. It's only further worsened at the reminder that snakes, if this thing is some distant cousin of the snakes he knows, smell with their tongues.
Kudos to him for attending that day of class. Present Jim certainly thanks Past Jim for letting him know that the giant alien-not-alien snake now knows what he both smells and tastes like. She’s gone to sniffing him out now, adapting and changing her approach just like he is.
One part of him wonders if he tastes good, at least to her senses. The other part wants to retch. She backs away, and he takes that as his cue to leave.
“Oh, no!” he shouts before he can think. Her response is nothing but a monstrous shriek, and that glowing blue maw of doom is in front of him faster than he can think. He darts back, trying to escape to the other side, but no luck again.
He grits his teeth and scrambles for a solution. She can’t seem to reach him back here, but he’s not so foolish to believe she won’t find a way—even if camping back behind this row of rocks works for a while, it’ll only be good until Gunmar pulls him out himself.
“The fruit!” he remembers, taking it out and giving it a hasty look-over. Nomura’s gift rests heavy in his hand, the pear-shaped purple thing already emanating a faintly horrific odor. “Ugh, this smells worse than Toby’s gym socks.”
He holds it far away from his face. His gut stirs at the sheer stench, threatening to release what would likely be nothing but bile and stomach acid. With the other hand, he waves the stench away from his nose, narrowing his eyes at the mere thought of the horrible particles irritating them.
“This better work,” he tells himself before gripping the stench-bomb of a fruit between his two hands and squeezing, crushing until the fruit bursts into a thick cloud of purple spores. The smell hits him like a truck when he takes his first breath, scraping against his airways as the churning in his gut grows angrier.
Then, he’s coughing his lungs out, trying to clear his airways of the violating stench as the cloud’s spores waft to the ground. When it’s finally clear enough for him to take a decent breath, the Darklands’ bitter environs have never felt so clear.
Jim steps back out into the open, each step slow and careful to keep his sabatons from clacking loudly against the stone ground. A low rumble vibrates in the air, inside Jim’s skull and beneath the thick plates of Eclipse encasing every inch of his body.
He tilts his head up to face the beast, and she watches him with an eyeless stare. She leans down, her gaping maw becoming all he can see just when her glowing blue tongue comes down to hover before his face.
His lungs seize, and he finds himself too afraid to take a breath for fear she’ll hear it and strike.
Jim backs against the rock and feels the back plates of armor scrape against the hard surface, holding himself like a statue against it when the Nyarlagroth’s spade tongue reaches down for another taste. One wasn’t enough, it seems, and she licks another stripe across the skin of his face.
Her tongue brushes dangerously close to his eye this time, so he twists them both shut, unknowing of what will happen next.
The Nyarlagroth screams. Like a powerful banshee, rattling the Crucible like a birdcage, shaking and swaying to and fro like she’s been hurt. Jim opens his eyes to find her.
In that moment, he finds her weak point. In that moment, he finds his will.
The next couple moments pass like lightning—months of muscle memory kick in, and he finds himself swinging and ascending her back, catching onto her hard scales until he finally summons his formerly missing sword and drives it deep into her head. She lets out one final, desperate cry, swishing back and forth until the very end, and he falls to the ground with her.
The impact has him seeing stars. The wind is knocked clean from him, and sparks of pain radiate from most of the right side of his body, most notably his abdomen.
But his fight isn’t over yet. He scrambles to get to his feet, breaths coming in shallow, painful huffs as he raises his index finger up at the throne far before him.
“You can’t break me, Gunmar!” Jim declares. His voice carries all the way to Gunmar’s throne, reverberating all throughout the arena. Heavy, metallic footsteps beat against the ground behind him. “You’re only making me stronger!”
An oversized hand yanks his arm down, throwing him off his balance as another one of Gunmar’s soldiers entraps Jim’s other arm in their harsh grasp. He refuses to submit, still too high on adrenaline and pride at felling such a beast. He fights against them, pulling against their unrelenting grasps and feeling a sense of satisfaction well up within him at Gunmar’s frustrated roars.
He fights them the entire way back to his cell, right up until the moment they throw him back in and the electric crystal spikes enclose him inside the tiny stone cell once again.
They won’t break him. This may be one of his toughest challenges yet, but he’ll overcome it, just like he has time and time again.
Gunmar will regret the day he messed with the Trollhunter.
Gunmar’s next challenge stands before Jim.
Towering over him, though to a much lesser degree than the Nyarlagroth, clad in a purple that complements the hue of her skin, black hair stretching down the length of her back, and radiant green, serpent-like eyes staring into him with determination and fear at the same time. Nomura draws one of her khopeshes from her back with a snarl, taking slow step after slow step closer to him.
Jim holds his Eclipse Blade out as she brandishes the sword. The achiness in his muscles from the last fight still lingers, gnawing away at his energy in a reminder of the little rest he’s been granted. A single candy bar and however many hours of sleep he’s had certainly don’t feel like enough after the toll last night’s, or yesterday’s, or whatever’s battle took on him.
Sleep hasn’t exactly been on his side since AAARRRGGHH!!! was turned to stone, even more so since he’s come to the Darklands, and he hasn’t had a proper meal since then, either—he’s not counting Nyarlagroth eggs, because those are desperate measures best left for desperate times. But going so long without even one of those has left a hole in his stomach, forming into a weight over his entire body that exhausts him with every little movement. His muscles have turned to lead, his mouth into a desert, and his armor into a burden on his back.
He recalls the hour Nomura was taken from her cell, sometime before he was taken and after waking up. Before that, it was darkness and silence; before that, he was drifting off to “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”
Now, they circle each other, his Nougat Nummy long digested, only to leave an empty pit in his gut and the reminder that his friends will come.
Even if that moment isn’t now.
“If the Impure cannot break your armor, her death surely will!” Gunmar jeers in his usual gravelly voice, raising one fist in the air. He points one blue claw down at the circling pair, then declares, “You shall be mine!”
When Gunmar’s hand forms back into a fist, Jim grits his teeth and swaps his blade for a shield, opting for defense over offense. He raises one hand to Nomura, a wordless request for peace.
“We don’t have to fight, Nomura,” Jim insists. He takes a step back when she takes a step forward.
“You don’t. I do,” Nomura counters. Her blade drags against the ground as she nears. “Sorry. I really was getting to like you.”
With both blades now drawn, she launches at him with the aim to kill, raising her blades high and bringing them down in a flurry of blows he just barely manages to block. Each one threatens to tear his shield away from and leave him exposed, until she raises and brings them down upon his shield again.
“Fight me, young Gynt!” she pleads, for both her sake and his, “or else Gunmar will do us both in!”
He doesn’t get a word in before she’s back dealing blows to his shield. She knocks him backward with a powerful kick and slash.
“My friends will be here soon,” Jim insists, stepping further and further away from her. “We’ll go home, we just have to hold out!”
“Home?” she retorts, brandishing both of her blades. Her voice has been reduced to an exasperated growl. “Home is gone!”
When she launches forward again to continue her relentless assault, Jim gets the feeling she’s speaking more to herself than to him; that there is nowhere for her to return to on the surface, much less than there is an escape from the Darklands in the first place. She forces Jim to draw his sword, and they continue their battle.
His moves quickly grow sloppy, already far less coordinated than her skills honed through centuries of battle. She moves much faster and hits much harder, leaving him to stumble and just barely defend against her onslaught. The ache in his stomach grows insistent and the weight burdening his muscles amplifies, weakening his already failing defense until one misstep sends his sword flying, and he’s just inches from losing his head when he catches her swords in their trail with his twin glaives.
As the fights drags on, he pleads, implores, begs her to wait until his friends arrive, only to find himself on the receiving end of attempts on his life, with refutes and refusals being his only response.
“Only one of us is leaving this arena.”
His will falters again, the second time since he’s arrived in the Darklands.
“You cry for your friends, but there is no rescue.”
She breaks from his hold, pinning him to the ground with her claws laced around his throat.
“There is no home!”
His sword stops responding to him again. Soon, his shield follows, and he’s left strapped for both offense and defense, left scrambling helplessly away as she closes in for the kill.
“Your will betrays you, and so does your armor!”
She’s right, he realizes when she raises the khopesh high over her head and prepares to deal the killing blow. She was always right, she is right, and she always will be right.
Terror claws at him from inside and seizes his heart as he looks away from the face of his end.
“Enough, Nomura,” Gunmar commands. Her bright green eyes shift to look over at him, then she lets her blade lower, loosening the grip on the one she has poised against Jim’s neck. He sighs with a deep, shaky breath of relief, though his heart still rushes a million miles a minute in his chest. “You’ve proven your loyalty. Now, leave the final blow to me.”
Out of the pan and into the fire, it seems. Jim already feels spent, limbs unsteady after running on nothing but adrenaline for so long, and each breath coming in uneven, scratchy huffs.
“Merlin’s Trollhunter is mine!” Gunmar bellows, rising from his throne. The crystals that span from his armrests light up in a dull, sickly hue when he grips the stone, then rises to his full form.
Gunmar’s lone blue eye stares into Jim’s soul as he approaches. It’s as if he’s trying to whittle away the last of Jim’s shaky will by gaze alone. The weight of each step shakes the Crucible, his imposing presence enough to move the earth itself. Nomura scrambles back away as he nears, and she subconsciously makes herself appear smaller by hunching and averting her eyes in Gunmar’s presence.
She drops her weapons to the ground, then takes a knee.
Jim braces one hand on the ground and springs back to his feet. He straightens his back and puffs out his chest, hoping to regain a smidgen of courage by faking it until he makes it. He swishes his right hand in an attempt to summon his sword, then his left for his shield, then reaches for his glaives, but it’s nothing, nothing, and nothing.
The Eclipse Amulet flickers, the crimson glow fading into only a shadow of what it once was. Jim pleads under his breath for something, anything, but the only response he receives is more nothing.
Gunmar holds his hand out to his side, allowing Jim a full view of the Decimaar Blade as it materializes into its full breadth. The distinguished blue glow overshadows his red with ease, even more so than the Nyarlagroth’s tongue—now that he thinks about it, they have a strikingly similar hue.
This, however, is not the time to think about that. Not when Gunmar stands before him, and his facade of bravery crumbles like ash in the wind.
“Leave us, Nomura,” Gunmar orders.
“My Lord,” she begins, keeping her eyes firmly on the ground by Gunmar’s feet. “He is but a boy.”
“Who are you to question my actions?” he replies in a growl, and Nomura doesn’t say another word. “I shall show this boy the same mercy he showed mine!”
Jim winces at the reminder. Right, there’s probably not a lot of words that would work when it comes to convincing this guy, whose son Jim drove his sword through, to let him go. Outright fighting him is off the table, especially with the state of his amulet, and Nomura doesn’t seem like she’ll be much of a help anymore.
He still glances back at Nomura. She returns the look, but only for a single, regret-laced second, before bowing and taking her leave.
“Hey, don’t—!” Jim cuts himself off as Gunmar growls, now towering high over Jim as he takes a shaky step back. “You don’t think we can talk through this like civilized people—trolls—whatever, do you?”
“Are those your last words, fleshbag?” responds Gunmar, misty ice blue flames rippling from his eye. “Tell me, what were the last words my son spoke to you, before you took him from me?”
Jim grits his teeth. Each and every muscle of his body is running on nothing but adrenaline; fueled by the faintest chance of escape, leaving him teetering on some strange medium between ready to fight and ready to fall apart. They ache as much as they shake.
The gate to the other end of the Crucible stands open, allowing Nomura to leave in the company of two Gumm-Gumm soldiers. Jim silently gathers the rest of his frittering will, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet and taking in a slow, quivering breath.
“I don’t think I could ever forget it,” he begins, keeping his gaze firmly trained on Gunmar’s face. “He told my friends they were just in time to see me die. Then I drove Daylight through his chest, just like I will yours, Gunmar.”
Gunmar roars, shaking the Crucible and raising his sword high above Jim. Jim takes his opening, sprinting just past Gunmar and making a desperate dash for the wide-open gate.
His vision narrows, and all he can focus on is the open gate. Nomura turns her eyes back to him and asks, “Little Gynt?” while the Gumm-Gumm guards grasp their spears and ready for a fight.
He can dodge a few Gumm-Gumms; Gunmar is still behind him, though based on the earthquake-like rhythms felt beneath his feet, the distance between them is quickly narrowing.
“Move!” Jim commands, waving his right hand again in a desperate last-ditch attempt to summon his blade. He realizes at the last second he’ll have to go through them empty-handed, swerving to the side to avoid the swing of a spear from another Gumm-Gumm.
“Close the gate!” Gunmar instructs, the deep boom of his voice rattling around in Jim’s skull. He’s close, much too close for comfort, and the Gumm-Gumm guards are closing in on him fast.
One of the Gumm-Gumm soldiers begins cranking the gate closed. Nomura mutters a fast “I’m sorry, little Gynt,” then escapes through the gate as it closes.
Jim reaches his sword arm out, as if he can will the gate to open again any better than he can will his sword to appear. It creaks, then the twisted bars slam together, barring his escape just as he reaches the threshold.
“No,” Jim pleads, reaching one hand around the thick metal bar and pulling. It doesn’t move an inch. “No, no, no, come on!”
His sword arm is seized in a relentless grip, then he’s twisted around to face Gunmar, the Decimaar Blade held above his face as his elbow and shoulder to creak at the sheer pressure being placed on it. The chainmail material is great for preventing lacerations and stabbings, less so for crush wounds.
“Tell me why I should grant you the mercy of a quick death, young Trollhunter?” Gunmar barks. His blade begins to stream blue, forming sharp claws around Jim’s mind as his twisted arm is pushed to the limit. The sharp angles of the gate press against his back as he tries and fails to slip from Gunmar’s grasp. “Tell me how a pathetic being such as yourself has stolen my son from me!”
“He got what he deserved,” Jim retorts, “and you will, too!”
He finishes by hacking up a glob of saliva and spitting it into the Skullcrusher’s face. Gunmar freezes, and one of the Gumm-Gumm soldiers dares to turn their head away from the sight.
Jim almost bursts into laughter at it; the great Gunmar the Black, stunned silent by such an act of disrespect—
—until a great, piercing crack rings through the Crucible, and his arm shatters and bends in a way it most definitely should not.
The sound hits him before the pain does. With wide eyes, he turns his head, only to come face to face with Gunmar’s claw engulfing his sword arm still clad in Eclipse, though bent almost ninety degrees in the wrong direction. His vambrace creaks beneath the grip, and the chainmail twists and bends just like his mess of a joint.
Jim can’t hear Gunmar’s next words over the sound of his own screaming.
His arm is released, and he screams again, his vocal cords already raw as pain jets down to the tips of his fingers and to the top of his shoulder, spanning from his shattered elbow in wave after wave. His fingers prickle with pain and turn numb as he feels the bones start to rub against each other with every twitch of muscle.
All of his thoughts escape him but one: the sheer agony tearing through his limb as he cries out, his throat running raw when he takes one, two, three shallow, hurried breaths, and another cry escapes him.
His vision is blurry when he opens his eyes again—he must have closed them sometime after seeing his crushed mess of an arm—and looks down at it again as it hangs limply at his side. The vambrace and gauntlet encasing his right arm grow to feel like a million pounds, weighed down by gravity and adding to the sheer agony coursing like fire through his torn veins.
Another sharp cry escapes him when Gunmar seizes him by the torso, and his feet barely brush against the ground when he’s pressed against the hard metal, now eye-level with the Warlord as he battles to take a breath in. One of Gunmar’s talons drives into his side, making him scared to move out of the risk of driving it deeper.
“Let your pain serve as a reminder.” Gunmar’s fist closes tighter around Jim’s torso, and stars begin to dance along his vision—the world grows muffled as the stars are replaced by dark spots, growing and spotting like mold as the seconds drag on.
He kicks and struggles, caught entirely off-guard by the sudden assault, but he’s no match for Gunmar’s raw strength, but he fights and fights anyway because he’s not ready to die here, he’s still too young, he hasn’t said goodbye to Toby or Claire or Blinky or—
But the pain begins to numb, fading into a dull prickle rather than a slew of raging waves. Gunmar’s mouth moves, but his brain is no longer registering the sounds ensuing; as second by second passes without a breath, his brain starts to shut down and the world begins to fade away, allowing the ensuing numbness to embrace his body in its chilling reprieve.
The last thing the sees before slipping into nothingness is one thing:
Gunmar’s lone, blue eye.
When he wakes, a small part of him wonders if he’s paralyzed; the cell is dark, even though his eyes are open, it’s dead quiet, and his limbs weigh a thousand pounds each. A wave of nausea hits him as soon as he turns his head, followed by a ragged breath as he fights back the urge to expel what little fluid remains in his stomach.
He takes another breath. When oxygen returns to his limbs, the pain follows suit—an insistent ache from the tendons in his neck to the lengths of his calves, pleading with him to remain still as he fights to regain his grasp on reality. The next sensation that follows is the harsh, prickling pain in his sword arm, ensued by a sharp stabbing in his ribs as he breathes in, then out. His left leg is tortured by relentless waves of needles, spanning from his hip to the tips of his toes, none of which respond to his command. An incessant pounding spans from where his head rests on the stone, blotting out the sound of his own panicked thoughts.
Jim raises his left arm first, the muscles tight from disuse and fatigue as he brings it into view. It’s not pitch black, contrary to what he initially believed, and the subtle crimson glow of his vambrace makes a break in the cloud of black.
He flexes his fingers, listening to the armor encasing his fingertips clacking against that adorning his palm. His grip is weak, hardly able to touch his fingers to his palm, much less form a sturdy fist.
He takes in another breath. His thinking is slow to return to him, as if his brain is still struggling to come back online.
Trying to sit up, his first thought is to brace his core, but the attempt is quickly thwarted by another sharp stabbing pain, radiating from his mid-chest both up and down, forcing a pained breath from his throat as he brings his hand over to examine his side. Shallow breaths ensue when a pop sounds from one of his ribs, leaving him desperate for a breath of air not followed by a shock of pain.
He lets out a cry. Everything hurts, and he’s just trying to breathe, but that hurts, too. He hurts and weeps because he was scared to die then, and he’s still scared to die now.
But Jim just breathes, because it’s all he can do.
Somewhere in the Darklands, the whistled tune of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” echoes through the black expanse.
Jim isn’t sure how long he spends just like that; lying on the cold, hard ground of his cell.
A few minutes, a few hours, maybe a day. There’s no sense of day or night in this place, just endless darkness. It would be silly to expect anything except darkness from a place called the Darklands, but he’s sure that getting his sleep schedule back on track if he returns is going to be horrible.
“When,” he whispers to himself, his vocal cords just barely responsive. It feels better to say it out loud than to just think about it, so he continues, “When, not if. When, not...”
Not if. Never if. He’s going home, whether he believes he will or not. Even the word “hopeless” isn’t devoid of hope, as Blinky always reminds him. He just has to hold onto every shred of hope he can.
When his tears dry up, he just keeps breathing, in and out over and over again. For the longest time, he just stares up at the ceiling, occasionally tracing his eyes over softly glowing green cracks. When the pain recedes enough for him to move again, it’s a slow, painstaking process to sit back up as he minds his many new injuries.
He sits against the wall now, staring out at the electric crystals barring him from his freedom. His ribs still ache with every breath and he’s careful to avoid jostling his arm, but it’s no longer as bad as it was when he first woke.
At least, the injuries aren’t. His hunger and thirst are a much different matter.
While the achiness of his muscles has subsided to a dull buzz, the gnawing in his gut has increased tenfold, an empty chasm that feels like much more than just a lack of food. In the fruitless search for sustenance, it eats into his core, draining him of energy and strength as it begs for a morsel of nourishment, only to be denied time and time again.
Jim is a generally happy person; that much he knows about himself. With a couple of positive affirmations and reminders that he’s survived a hundred percent of whatever life’s thrown at him so far, he can tackle any challenge it continues to saddle him with. He credits his positivity for keeping him together through things most people his age wouldn’t even dream of experiencing—through thick and thin, the highs, the lows, and the very lows.
But the pit in his center threatens to drain that from him, too. His tongue rubs against the roof of his mouth like sandpaper, his heart flutters in his chest, each shallow beat followed by a low thrum of pain in his ribs, and he can feel his empty intestines shift inside of him.
Even the thought of trying to stand up makes his gut writhe. The speed of his thoughts has taken on the likeness of a snail in molasses, and each rational one elicits the same, visceral reaction.
The thought of how quickly his mind and body are falling apart.
The thought of how fast his humanity is failing him.
The thought of how rapidly the seams of his mind and body are unraveling when faced with hunger and a couple injuries.
His mind trails back to Nomura. Although long gone, the ghost of her tune lingers in his ears, just below the rasp of his breath and the beat of his heart.
He doesn’t know how long she’d been in her cell before he was thrown in his. How much she’d suffered at Gunmar’s hand before they’d been pitted against each other in the Crucible, how much time they’d let her rot in that cell with minimal food and water, how much time she’d been given to stew in her fear and despair before they presented her with the chance to escape.
“I’m sorry, little Gynt.”
Jim remembers those radiant green eyes staring into him with apprehension, fear, and guilt above all. He wonders what he would have done, had it been him in front of that open gate.
Would he have saved her? Or would he have done what she did?
He understands why, but that doesn’t lessen the pain by any degree.
The worst feeling is the lingering feeling of how scared he was; his arm enveloped in Gunmar’s oversized claw, so easily snapped in two by the beast’s strength. His entire body, held in one hand, budging not an inch no matter how hard he fought for his life.
He could’ve died, right then and there, and nothing he could’ve done would’ve saved him. In that moment, and the entire time he’s been stuck in this cell, he's been at Gunmar’s complete and utter mercy. At any moment, he could be dragged from his cell and subjected to a cruel, horrifying death, and there’s nothing he could do to stop it.
His life is no longer in his own hands, and it’s a reality more terrifying than he ever could’ve thought possible.
Jim clasps an armored hand over his mouth to muffle a sob, another escaping at the pain jetting through his ribs as his body starts to quake. His vision blurs, so he focuses on one specific glowing crack on the ceiling and wills himself to not cry. In through his nose, then shakily out through his mouth. In and out, because crying over his fate will do him no favors.
He’ll make it home, and then he can sob into the arms of someone who’ll tell him that everything will be alright. Because he will make it home, and someday, this will all be one bad dream.
When he’s mostly calmed down again, he rests his head against the stone behind him and keeps his eyes glued on that one specific crack. His hair acts like a pillow between his skull and the stone, and his bangs droop into the upper corner of his vision. They never do that unless his hair is wet, for whatever reason, which signals that he’s about due for a haircut.
He brings his left hand up and brushes them from his eyes, only for them to fall right back in place. They fall back again when he runs a hand carefully through his hair, only for it to get stuck in a clump near the back of his head. When withdraws his hand to take a look, he finds a glossy red that doesn’t belong to his armor now coating his fingertips.
Jim figures he must’ve hit his head when they returned him to his cell. Tossed would be a better word, and it would explain the extended headache and overall sluggishness of his thoughts, along with the nausea. Though on second thought, there’s a lot more that could be contributing to those same symptoms.
He lets out a slow sigh and rests his hand back on the ground, wishing he had the ability to treat it. The whole hygiene situation is looking anything but great at the moment—right now, he’s all oil and dried sweat, matted hair and skin crusted with blood, foul odors he’s grown used to and cavities he most definitely has.
In short, he’s a mess. He’s truly never missed soap as much as he does now.
The rumble of hefty armor against stone pulls him from his thoughts.
Based on the sound in the distance, a couple of Gumm-Gumm soldiers are descending into the cavern of cells. Jim’s first instinct is to scramble to the back wall of his cell, but he’s already there, and it’s not like that would keep them from taking him, anyway.
When the soldiers approach the cell and the crystals recede into the wall, they part to allow a lone troll to step inside.
“Have a nice nap?” Blinky’s brother—Dictatious Galadrigal, if Jim’s foggy mind recalls correctly—asks as he steps into the small cell. It’s much less accommodating for a troll of his stature, his hair nearly coming to brush at the ceiling, and even less so for the Gumm-Gumms. In one of his four hands, he holds a crude-looking leather pouch. It’s messily stitched together with a thin, fraying string holding the open end shut.
“I’ve—” is all Jim gets out before his scratchy throat seizes, forcing out a couple of dry coughs before he clears his throat. A searing pain radiates from his ribs, and the muscles of his abdomen quiver. “Had better. Terrible s-service, one star, wouldn’t stay again.”
While a dry chuckle escapes him at his own terrible humor, Dictatious just tilts his head slightly, before shrugging and tossing the leather pouch at Jim’s feet.
“Drink up, boy,” Dictatious instructs. A low grin stretches onto his face before he adds, “Remember to keep your strength up. You’ll need it.”
The words would normally sound reassuring, if they weren’t coming from a creature bent on making him suffer for personal gain. The eerie resemblance to his mentor certainly isn’t helping ease his mind, either.
The differences in personality are staggering. One, kind and patient, meaning well with every word he speaks. The other, self-serving and dedicated to a force that brings nothing but suffering. Jim quietly wonders how two trolls can be so similar, yet so different.
Dictatious turns away and takes the Gumm-Gumm guards with, the electric crystals reverting to their barrier form before Jim can move. His eyes linger on the formation for a minute, listening as Dictatious and the other Gumm-Gumms by his side continue down the length of the cavern. Their heavy footsteps eventually fade away, leaving him alone in the cell.
Jim then looks down at the leather pouch by his feet. He carefully pulls his legs into a crisscross position and leans over, wincing at the shock from his ribs and left leg, then slowly reaches for the mystery pouch with his left hand.
He realizes it’s a waterskin when he clasps his hand around it, sitting back against the wall as the liquid inside sloshes around. A sharp jolt of pain radiates down his arm when he tries to reach for the string with his right hand.
The fingers of his right hand prickle as they’re stabbed by a hundred invisible needles. His whole arm still hangs limp by his side, numb to everything but the agony of the shattered bones beneath his skin and armor. If they’re planning on putting him through anymore trials, then a broken arm is only going to guarantee a fatal disadvantage.
The fact that it’s the arm he writes with—and fights with—only makes things worse.
“Fuck,” Jim mutters under his breath. He’s not usually one for swears, but this is the type of situation that calls for it.
He redirects his attention back to the waterskin, propping it up on his thigh and reaching for the string. With only one hand, it takes a bit of time and effort to undo the knot and open it up. Once it’s open, he brings it up and takes a sniff.
It smells like dried leather, but that’s it. When he takes the first sip, he could almost cry, if it weren’t for the fact that tears meant wasted water; because actual water is what's contained in the waterskin. Lukewarm, probably not the cleanest, but by Deya’s grace, drinking simple water has never felt so relieving.
He’s halfway through the waterskin before he knows it.
Like liquid ambrosia, the life returns to him as he polishes it off, shaking it for every last drop contained within. His throat no longer scratches like sandpaper with every breath and clarity begins to return to his mind, now feeling more like syrup than molasses.
It’s a start. He certainly won’t be in tip-top shape for a while, but he’ll take whatever he can get.
When the final drop of water is drained from the waterskin, Jim drops it beside his thigh and takes a breath as deep as his aching ribs will allow him. He could almost say he feels rejuvenated, if it weren’t for the hunger that still gnaws at him and the injuries restricting his movement.
“There we go,” he whispers to himself, words finally returning to him. He can speak again without feeling like his throat is tearing itself apart, so that’s what he does—the silence has grown old and unsettling, and it’s good to hear a human voice again, even if it only belongs to him.
The reason why they’re providing him with water is an afterthought, one he has plenty of time to dwell on now that he’s already fresh out of it. Another trial to break his will, most likely, just like the other trials they’ve put him through so far.
Another fight to the death. The more trials he’s put through, the more his will weakens, the more likely his armor is to shatter and leave him vulnerable to the Decimaar Blade. Jim pulls his knees close to his torso and rests his chin on his knee, shutting his eyes and thinking about home.
He’s running out of time. With a shattered arm, cracked ribs, hunger sapping him of energy and his will close to shattering, he isn’t sure how much longer he can survive like this.
He’s scared Gunmar will win before he ever gets the chance to see them again.
The approaching sound of armor against stone is what pulls Jim from his hazy state.
His eyes flutter open just as the two Gumm-Gumms reach for an arm each, and a burst of adrenaline sends him rushing to get away.
“Hey, watch the arm, watch the arm—!” he pleads, only for his words to fall on deaf ears as the Gumm-Gumm clasps onto his broken arm, wrenching a guttural scream from him as he’s yanked to his feet and dragged from the cell.
The bones grind against each other unnaturally, agonizingly, and he feels hot tears bead and spill from his eyes as the pain overwhelms his senses. He scrambles to get to his feet and walk at their pace to shift the burden even slightly away from his fractured arm, but he only succeeds in tripping over his own feet as the world spins, his arm screams, and he cries out with it.
“Let me go, let me go,” Jim begs between pained groans, but they don’t listen. He's dragged forward and down the cavern as his pleas bounce off the endless stone cracks and corners. “Not the arm, come on, not the—!”
He’s cut short when the gates to the Crucible creak open and he’s pulled through, then thrown forward onto the hard ground. He rolls over and reaches over to stabilize his arm, unable to restrain the cries spilling from his throat as wave after wave of stabbing and burning radiates from the limb.
The thudding of the Gumm-Gumms' footsteps begins to recede when they leave him lying there. They couldn’t care less about leaving him writhing in pain, just like everything else in this realm—right now, acknowledging that brutal reality is proving to be herculean, when he needs to stand and fight but all he knows is pain.
A shadow blots out the sickly crystal lighting. Jim pulls a deep, scratchy breath into his lungs, then tilts his head up to find Dictatious peering over him, his signature grin stretched over his face.
“I suggest you don’t leave the Dark Underlord waiting,” Dictatious tells him. “On your feet, boy.”
One of the Gumm-Gumm soldiers approaches, spear in hand, then swings it in an arc and stabs it into the ground directly beside Jim’s head. He flinches at the impact, the sound leaving a high-pitched ringing in his ears as he reluctantly rolls to his side and gets to his feet.
The world blurs when he stands, and he comes close to eating rock when a wave of dizziness washes over him. His head pounds with the rhythm of his racing heart, and the ringing in his ears has yet to dissipate.
Dictatious steps to the side, directing Jim to stand before Gunmar’s throne. Jim presses a hand to his temple in an effort to right the world and reduce the pounding in his head, then takes one careful step forward, followed by another, then another. He supports most of his weight on his right leg while the left prickles as if asleep. One step at a time, he presents himself before Gunmar, bringing his eyes up to look upon the dark silhouette of the beast resting on his throne.
“Trollhunter.” Gunmar rises from his throne, taking slow, almost regal steps down the stairs. He towers high above Jim’s small frame, his cold demeanor emanating power and strength with a single glance. “Come closer.”
But Jim is rooted in place. His muscles turn to stone as if poisoned with Creeper’s Sun, and his lungs rattle with each shivering breath.
A spear to the back of his knee sends him tumbling to the ground with a grunt, then his face is seized in Gunmar’s grip and he’s forced to stare directly into the beast’s eye, a tremble wracking his body as the Skullcrusher’s nostrils flare.
“How long it has been,” Gunmar begins, the acrid stench of rot spilling from his maw, “since I was graced by the scent of human fear as potent as yours.”
A shudder escapes him when Gunmar tilts Jim’s head to the side and takes a long, slow breath, savoring every delectable whiff as Jim’s heart pounds in his ears and every inch of his skin crawls.
“Fear heightens your senses,” Blinky’s words echo in his head. “Fear keeps you alive. Arrogance gets you killed.”
Jim’s veins brim with fear, ripe for the picking and ready to send him fighting or running for his life. Gunmar’s breath brushes against the crook of his neck, and Jim’s poleyns and sabatons scrape against the ground in an aborted attempt to escape. He reaches his shaky left hand slowly, carefully down to the side of his cuisse, feeling the weapon reluctantly respond to his desperate call.
He grips the glaive in hand. Gunmar kneels before him, vulnerable.
Distracted.
He’s strong, so much stronger than Jim could ever hope to be in terms of raw physicality, but all he needs is one decisive strike.
Just like the Nyarlagroth. All he needs is to hit where it hurts most, to swing and strike, to drive the blade deep into the Skullcrusher and reclaim his freedom—
—and then he’s on the ground, stars sprawling and dancing across his vision as the world returns from static.
“Did you really think that childish trick would work on me?” Gunmar growls. His claws press Jim into the hard stone below, and Eclipse creaks beneath the pressure, his breastplate letting out a metallic groan. His glaive blinks back out of existence in a puff of crimson, leaving him unarmed once again; not that he ever had a chance against Gunmar in the first place.
Jim can’t even muster a response, all hopes of freedom swept away like smoke in the wind.
“You have no idea how much I ache to tear you limb from limb,” Gunmar taunts, the rumble of his voice traveling through every inch of Jim’s Eclipse armor. When the ringing in his ears fades back to a dull thrum and the world returns to him, the pain does, too—pounding, disorienting, endless, inescapable.
“Why don’t you?” Jim croaks. “What’s stopping you, huh?”
Gunmar pulls his claw away from Jim’s breastplate, allowing the boy to take a single deep, pained gasp. Jim clutches at his chest, unable to soothe the searing pain in his ribs that follows with every needed breath. His gauntlet clacks against the armor, a subconscious, repetitive movement as oxygen returns to his body.
“Because you will tell us the location of the Killahead bridge,” Dictatious fills in, “and we need you alive for that.”
Jim stares up at the high ceiling of the Crucible, realizing that he’s on the ground yet again. They're going to make him stand up just to be kicked down, only to repeat the process once they’re entertained enough. Once he can no longer stand, they’ll throw him back to his cell to hunger as Gunmar has, ‘til he’s clinging to last strand of life and they’re ready to see him suffer once again.
Right now, if he could kill, he would kill for some of his mom’s cooking. He’d kill to get out of this place too, but that’s already a given.
He lets out a humorless chuckle before replying, “I dunno what...” he pauses to take another breath, “...makes you think I’d t-tell you.”
“We have our ways of being convincing,” Dictatious responds in an even tone, as if those were the exact words he was expecting to hear. Gunmar stands up to his full height and turns his back to Jim, who makes the effort to sit back up, pushing past the pain in his ribs as Dictatious speaks. “Since you were so eager to give us a show with these Gumm-Gumms, why don’t you present your skills to us again?”
Jim jumps to his feet when a row of Gumm-Gumms come too close for comfort, all of them brandishing glowing stone spears as they ready to attack. He tilts the right side of his body away from them, needles shooting down his right arm as he waves his left to summon his shield.
It doesn’t respond. The wave of Gumm-Gumms begins to close in, forming an inescapable circle as he’s left unarmed and so, very vulnerable.
“T-this, uh—” Jim stammers, looking side to side, then over his shoulder, then back again as a dozen Gumm-Gumms prepare to tear him apart. “Seems a little unfair, doesn’t it?”
“Your mind may be strong, Trollhunter,” Gunmar calls out from his throne, “but we shall see how long your pathetic flesh body lasts you!”
One of the Gumm-Gumm soldiers swings. Jim ducks down with a yelp as the wind off the spear brushes by, then swerves to the side as another comes dangerously close to skewering him. To them, he’s a fish in a barrel, and they’re the ones with the guns. He can dodge and deflect all he wants, but his endurance will run out soon enough. His breaths already come in shallow, despairing huffs.
The amulet flickers. The smoldering light begins to wither; a physical manifestation of his dying will. When a spear comes right for his face, his helmet fails to appear, and his cheek tears open on the glowing obsidian’s edge.
A shout escapes his raw throat, and tears immediately begin to blur his vision as the sharp pain radiates all along his face. The taste of iron permeates in his mouth, spanning from the corner of his lips as the scent hits him from so close.
One misstep, and it’s over.
One misstep, and he’s dead.
One misstep, and he’ll never get to say goodbye. They’ll never know what happened to him. He’ll have disappeared into the Darklands, only for them to know of his failure when the Merlin’s Amulet calls upon someone more worthy of the mantle.
One misstep, but he grows more and more fatigued.
One misstep, but his body cries for rest.
One misstep, but he betrays himself as he cries for mercy.
One misstep, and he fails to reign in his fear. One misstep,
One misstep,
One misstep,
one misstep
one misstep
and all he knows is
pain.
.
.
.
.
Merlin’s armor is powerful.
It's the only reason Jim is still alive—but barely.
Blood pools in the back of his throat. His broken ribs shift with each impossible breath. His vision is tinted red where it seeps into his eyes. His limbs don’t respond to him anymore.
If someone were to tell him this was hell, he wouldn’t be able to hear them over the ringing in his ears and the fog drowning his brain.
But if he could hear them, he would believe them.
With each second that passes, he crawls an inch closer to death. That he knows, even though his sixteen years can only be considered a blip in the lives of many, even though all his knowledge is but a single page compared to the tomes of elders, he knows it with each steadily weakening heartbeat.
And yet, no matter how desperately he wishes to see his family one more time, death could not come to him any faster.
Each second of agony only chips away at what little remains of his chipper state of mind, leaving him wishing for nothing more than—
—no, because if he admits it, then he’ll have to admit they’ve won, and admitting that they’ve won would kill him more than genuine death ever could.
Gunmar would use his blade to hollow him out and remake Jim into their Dark Champion. He would turn his back to everyone and everything he’s ever cared for: his mom, Toby, Claire, Blinky, AAARRRGGHH!!!, Draal, Arcadia, Trollmarket, the names and places go on and on, everything he would forget and seek to destroy, everything that’s brought him to this very moment and given him the strength to push forward.
Everything he’ll never see again. Everything he’ll dream about as the life slips through his fingers and away, away, anywhere but a cell in the Darklands.
To somewhere brighter, where the sun shines and his family stands at his sides.
A place where hope is a ray of sunlight he can grasp and let carry him away. It warms his cheeks, and he reaches out to the light, his bare hand prickling with the distant heat.
He clasps his hand around the light. It’s solid, metallic. Why is it metallic?
The light is steeped in violent green. Two verdant suns, burning through the darkness and through him. A thin, fuchsia claw reaches down to him, but he can’t summon the strength to crawl away.
A whine escapes his throat—a wordless, exhausted plea to leave him be. It goes unheard, and the claw brushes against the skin of his torn cheek. He hisses when it stings, and the claw retracts, then returns gently.
A touch without the intention to hurt. It lingers there, cold like marble and worn with years, but comforting, nonetheless.
Jim leans into it. “I... just w’na go home,” he mutters.
“You’re going home, little Gynt,” a familiar voice assures.