( accidental video | un: duckling )

[danserai]

[ it's a dark and — well it's just a dark month and ahiru never really functions well in the dark. she gets spooked easily which is sort of what happens here. a sequence of events, by a duck.

1. she enters the kitchen. the lights are off and she bumps into various furniture. ]

Ow ow ow ow —

[ 2. her hand brushes against a coat hanging on top of a chair. in her mind, she imagines a snake.

3. She panics and lets out a loud: ]

Quack!

[ 4. ahiru ends up turning into a duck on screen. gasp! not that she has realized she's being recorded.

5. she quickly waddles off and there's the sound of water and she comes back into the kitchen with a relief. ]

— Phew that was clo . . . ooooose, O-Odette! Were you displaying this the whole time?! A-Ah!!

[ ahiru immediately runs in front of the feed, waving her hands frantically. ]

You didn't see that! There's nothing to see! It was . . . uh, uh, a MYSTERY DUCK that broke into the house but it's gone now!

[ alas, ahiru has been well and truly outed as . . . a duck. ]

Comments

[spiritwalks]

Not necessarily. I've got these, and nobody here cares.

[Vyng tilts his jaw and briefly positions the camera over the gills on his neck.]

[danserai]

It's not the same thing though . . .

[spiritwalks]

No? Well...I guess you could've ended up with duck feet. Or feathers.

[His own mother had white fur across her back and shoulders. She was able to pass it off as one of several winter shawls she used to bundle herself against the frozen tundra's brutal cold. After Vyng went away to the south, his wild hair and feathered cowl usually did the job in concealing his gills when he wanted (and actually remembered) to lay low.]

As far as tells go, you probably can't get anymore subtle than a cowlick.

[danserai]

I didn't even know it was that . . . Drosselmeyer never told me . . .

[spiritwalks]

Drosselmeyer?

[danserai]

[ she nods slowly. ]

He's the person who gave me the magic to transform.

[spiritwalks]

What do you mean, gave it to you?

Was this Drosselmeyer, like...a wizard? A druid?

[danserai]

We don't have those.

[ as far as she knew, even though magic does exist. ]

He's . . . special. He makes stories come true.

[spiritwalks]

A story wizard, then.

[Wait.]

Like an author.

[danserai]

Exactly like that, but magical.

[spiritwalks]

So a wizard author. Got it.

Why did he turn you into a shapeshifter? Just, on a lark? [A beat.] Or, well. A duck in this case, I guess.

[danserai]

Oh, that's easy. He found it funny and hopes I suffer.

[spiritwalks]

On a shitty lark, then.

[A pause, and then—]

Wait...I thought you liked being a little lady, though.

[Vyng knows Duck was always a Duck, after all. So what's the problem?]

[danserai]

I do!

But it's not really me. Or my power. I can't stay this way.

[spiritwalks]

He wants to take your power from you? Drosselmeyer?

[danserai]

[ she shakes her head. ]

I told you. It was never my power. He gave it to me so I can play a part in his story.

[spiritwalks]

He's not here.

[danserai]

That doesn't make this power mine. It doesn't mean it can't be taken away.

[spiritwalks]

But what you do with your power is still for you to decide, isn't it?

[danserai]

That still doesn't make it mine. I get to decide and it's my decisions.

[ taking ownership of that isn't hard. but she knows the difference. ]

But it doesn't belong to me. It doesn't mean I'm allowed to keep it.

[spiritwalks]

What are the conditions for you keeping it?

[danserai]

To play out the story until the end.

But if I do that . . . I'll disappear. For good.

[spiritwalks]

So either he takes this power from you because he's bored, or you get all the mileage you can out of it...and disappear.

[danserai]

That's how it is.

[spiritwalks]

Do you think coming to this place is part of Drosselmeyer's story?