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It takes two days after the Battle of Arcadia Oaks for the Amulet to relinquish its hold on Jim’s body. He wakes in the night to an angry red flash that leaves his newly sensitive eyes blinded by afterimages in the dark, then a metallic pop as the Amulet separates itself from his chest. Jim dives forward, fumbling to catch the device before it clatters onto the floor—there is a loud sound in close proximity that yanks a growl from his throat before he can register that bending over has split his sweater, the one he’d been wearing before. The Amulet bounces into his bare palms.
Right. Trolls are bigger than people—remembering that makes Jim once again acutely aware of the fact that he’s only going to sleep in this room twice more before departing to New Jersey with Blinky and the rest of Trollmarket. Two more nights, then a decade and a half of familiarity and comfort down the drain.
Internally, he kicks himself, turning his attention back to the situation at hand: his freedom from the armor is a welcome relief despite the fact that his clothes are ruined. He stretches and bends in all the little ways that the sturdy metal plating never allowed, sighing through his teeth as something in his spine snaps back into place.
With only mild disappointment Jim reaches around to peel the shirt from his back—the garment is doomed anyway, so he’s careless in pulling it off. He shudders as he strips, fingers brushing along a stiff, coarse mane of hair that snakes down from the base of his skull. His literal hackles rise slightly beneath his fingertips as he prods against the curve of his spine, oddly reflexive, like blinking or breathing.
Awkwardly, Jim wriggles out of the tattered remains of his pants, kicking them to the side along with his utterly shredded sneakers. His feet look… odd—they’re certainly more human-like than nearly any other troll he’s ever seen, flat-footed and narrow unlike the typical elephantine stubs of larger trolls with more weight to throw around. His toes are longer than before and tipped with spade-shaped claws, too dull to be dangerous but absolutely sharp enough to get a real significant grip on things. Maybe even Arrrgh’s hair, if he tried to climb onto the larger troll’s back.
Jim is broken from his speculation by the acute realization that he is standing, stark naked, in front of his window. Is it the middle of pitch nighttime? Yes. Can the neighbors see as well in the dark as he? Probably not. Are they even awake? Unlikely at best—but his pride doesn’t care, and he scrambles for the blanket off his bed to use as a covering.
Between the sodalite-blue smoothness of his skin and his rudimentary toga, Jim feels very oddly like some kind of ancient Roman garden statue as he shuffles towards the closet. He curses his preference for tighter, more form-fitting clothes in his old life, as everything he finds is far too small and snug to even hope of trying on. He’s already been outgrowing these as as human thanks to all of Blinky’s training, and if they were figure-hugging then, they have no hope of covering his—as Claire put it—
meatier
trollish physique now.
He huffs through his nose, ears flicking of their own agitated accord.
Dad's things are in the far back of the closet, Jim knows. At any time before now, he would have needed a flashlight to sort through the disorganized boxes piled in there, but his newly enhanced vision sacrifices color for clarity of shapes, and his sharp nose picks up easily on the outlying sting of old cigarette smoke lingering over laundry detergent.
The crate is shoved deep somewhere to the left, underneath some other things that scent of plastic and freshener packets. He digs through its contents for a pair of grey drawstring sweatpants that would have fit like a tent before his transformation. Now they’re almost a bit tight, but he ignores that sensation in favor of digging out a massive Apaches jersey and yanking it over his head.
It is inordinately peculiar to feel the slight stirring of air that lifts up his shirt and kisses his navel as he pads down the stairs—Jim hadn’t realized it was something to be missed, before now. He is also hyper-aware of the grain of the railing beneath his now-bare fingers, the way his claws, growing quickly over the past few days, can so easily find purchase in the soft wood. He feels the tickle of his hair on his neck and on his shoulders where it spreads down into a mane, feeling very much like a wool scarf stuffed down the back of his shirt. His toes wriggle of their own accord against the hardwood, cool and smooth beneath his feet.
No longer trapped within the haywire confines of his armor, Jim feels naked—but also more
normal
than he has in what seems to be a long time. The microwave clock reads 3:23 AM, and at a glance the sky outside is plenty dark enough for him to afford a brief turn outside.
The grass in the yard is crisp and brisk with dew that tickles between his toes, and the night air is just muggy enough to cling to his bare skin. The moon peers down at him from where it sinks towards the horizon, a perusing white disk skirted by wispy purple clouds and a thin smattering of stars in the indigo sky. Jim sucks in a deep draught of the outdoors, uncaring of how the breath whistles past his tusks. He can hear raccoons from across the street, and the thrumming of insects in the nearby bushes.
It feels like summer.
He settles automatically back onto his haunches, eyes half-lidded as he sits and enjoys the tranquility of the early morning—but it can’t last. Before the moon has even finished slipping down over the lip of the skyline his hair stands on end, the tips of his ears trembling in instinctual warning.
The sun’s coming up. It’s gonna bite him with its rays and
hurt
, and strip and peel and flay away his flesh till he’s nothing but stone and he’s
dead
—
Jim goes inside.
There’s a little more time to sleep, so he curls up on the sofa with his legs bunched up beneath him and shuts his eyes. Resting, at least.
Sleep eludes him until the sun is already beaming through the window, smearing buttery light between the curtains. A growl hangs ready in Jim’s throat as he stretches, arching his spine inwards and kneading his fingers into the sofa until the release of tension draws a sigh from his lips.
With that, he swings his legs to the ground and stands, flicking his tongue absently over the corner of his mouth as he makes his way to the kitchen. Breakfast has long since become muscle memory, though Jim can't help but regret the inability of his new palate to appreciate his own cooking along the way. He cracks eggs on autopilot, mind wandering to the plans for New Trollmarket.
Blinky has been reluctant to allow him even this week of recuperation at home for fear that, without the immediate presence of a Heartstone, Jim will grow sickly and die. As what barely amounts to a whelp by troll standards, Blinky insists that it's imperative that Jim accompany him and the remaining population of Trollmarket to New Jersey so that his development might be adequately monitored.
Jim doesn't know how to feel about that. He whisks herbs into the eggs from memory, then pours the mix into the pan and wonders if it's all worth it—with Gunmar dead at his hands and Morgana sealed away, there's no real
need
for a Trollhunter anymore. Maybe it's better to waste away in comfort, warmed by his family and his friends and his home.
He heats and fills the pan with just enough pensive sluggishness that he catches himself. His life isn't over. Just…
different.
Blinky and Arrrgh are the best pair of fathers he can possibly ask for, and they love him. Even Nomura cares for Jim, in her way—and that's not even counting Claire, and phone calls, and the ambitious hope to build a new Gyre station.
It will be okay.