I've been adding to this story for a long while now. It's been a pretty decently long time in the making, to be honest, but I think I've finally gotten it pretty good. Hopefully you'll agree…
(Its also the longest Oneshot I've ever written. I thought of breaking it up, but I couldn't find a good place to do that)
Every time Rosi went to the lake, he was there.
He was there, sitting in an old wooden chair, cracked from years of use, creaking as he shifted in anticipation when he finally reached the last line of the clump of papers he was writing on.
And every time—every single time without fail—there was a little yellow duck swimming right below his feet.
Rosi watched him closely, nestled within the tall grasses surrounding the lake. She was a small girl for her age, even if her age was only six, and she could easily disappear from sight in those grasses. While the water droplets staining her dress, she didn't like, and her mother would give her the most terrible of scoldings when she returned, she was just too curious about the man sitting on the dock to resist spying.
And so she watched him that day, her pair of bright brown eyes peeking through the green blades, humming a lullaby to herself as she studied his hand dancing over the pages. Some days, it was fast, rapid and rushed, his eyes squinting in frustration or lit in excitement. Others, like today, it was slower and relaxed, a waltz, his eyes turned up in a slight, rare smile.
And sometimes, just once in a while, he spoke to the little duck circling below him as if it was a real person. Mother always scolded Rosi when she talked to herself. Why was a grown man doing just that?
"Duck, Duck…" he said, placing his pen down, "I'm being lazy with this story today. It's a simple tale; I'm not taking any chances at all. But I guess that can be alright every once in a while, right?"
The duck quacked back. Rosi could almost swear it was…cheerfully, as if she was answering him yes.
He gave a soft, reserved laugh, and putting his paper next to his pen, kneeled down to offer the duck his hand. Quacking once again, it lifted its webbed feet to step into his palm. He carried the duck to his chest, cradling it in his arms.
"Thank you, Duck." His eyes looked down at it with the affection she only saw her maid give her husband when he kisses her cheek, or her cousin give her boyfriend (the very idea of which made Rosi want to stick out her tongue in disgust) when he brought her a flower. That was a very odd look to give a duck, wasn't it?
"Such a weird man," whispered Rosi, resting her head on her palm. His hands stroked the ducks head gently, and the tiny creature snuggled against his wrinkled shirt. He shook his head.
"You stupid little duck."
Rosi frowned. That wasn't a nice thing to say, even to a duck. And why would someone who would look at something with such love call it stupid?
But the man continued to hold the duck so warmly that even she knew he didn't mean it. She crept forward, being sure to grip the grasses as to not slip on the mud bank (which was beginning to stain all the way up from the buckles on her shoes to the hem of her dress, another thing her mother would have a fit about), her attention growing more on him with each passing inch. Now that she was more up close, she could see that he was not very old, not even her mother's age, or her older cousin's, for that matter. He was maybe in his twenties, with dark hair that was tied back in a rather sloppy fashion that Rosi could never get away with, and deep green eyes that reminded her of jungles.
SPLASH!
Her hand had slipped on the mud after losing her concentration, sending her sliding in a slimy bundle right to the chilled lake water below. Just then, the man's face snapped up from the duck, immediately hardening into a glare. Rosi scrambled to her feet, only for her leg to swing up from under her and flipping her down once again.
"What you doing?" he snapped, his face keeping its hardened expression even as he gingerly lowered the duck back into the water.
"Nuthin'." Rosi mumbled, finally managing to clamber her way out of the lake and back onto the shore. Her dress dripped with lake water and mud, her hair splattered all over her face, her tights and shoes almost completely brown. "Oh, Mother is going to go crazy," she groaned while desperately (and pointlessly) trying to wipe the stains off her skirt, "she hates it when I get even the littlest spot!"
"Go away." He started to turn back to his chair.
"Wait!" called the little girl. He paused, but only for a moment, and then went right back to walking away from her. "I like to write stories too."
This time, he did stop.
"Then do it at school," he snarled, "and stop bothering me."
"I don't go to school."
"What?"
"I'm homeschooled by my tutors. And my mother says writing imaginary stories is silly."
The duck quacked in what almost sounded like disapproval.
"Your mother sounds like a pain." The man's eyes softened ever so slightly, but only because they were focused back on the little bird.
"Uh huh." Nodding rapidly, the girl ran up next to him, very careful this time not to step in the mud. "What is your name?"
"I am not telling y—"
"I'll go away if you tell."
This stopped him.
"Fakir," he moaned, tossing his hair out of his face and once again beginning to walk away.
"OK! Mine's Roswitha. But I don't like Roswitha, so you can call me Rosi. Nice to meet you. And what's the duck's?" she asked, taking a breath.
"What?"
"The duck you keep talking to."
Hesitantly, he answered. "Duck."
Rosi thumped her hands on her hips, giving the closest thing to a smirk a six-year-old girl could give. "What? Even I could give an animal a better name then that."
Duck once again quacked with disapproval. Fakir shushed it, nevertheless turning back to glower at the girl with the same annoyance.
But the child didn't stop. "Boy or girl?"
"Girl—ugh, didn't you say you would go away?" Fakir crossed his arms, looking very much like her cook when he was angry. Rosi giggled nervously.
"Oh, right." She kicked up her feet and began to skip away, taking one moment to look back at him as he seated himself back into his chair. "Bye, Mr. Fakir." She waved back at him.
Maybe it was her imagination, but she almost thought she heard him say "Bye, Rosi" back.
"Whatcha writing?" Rosi tried her best to peek over his shoulder, but the papers were quickly yanked out of her sight.
"None of your business," he mumbled.
It had only been a week since he told her his name, and almost every day she had come to visit him, or in his words, bother him. She didn't understand why he was so against her visits; he never talked much to any of the other neighbors, why didn't he enjoy just a little bit of company?
"You know…" The little girl plopped on the edge of the dock, her legs swinging back and forth over the water. "I heard you talk to Duck before. You tell her about your stories. And she's just a duck."
"Exactly. She's just an animal. She doesn't know what I'm saying." Flapping her wings, Duck gave a sharp squawk. Fakir mumbled something to her, but Rosi couldn't understand.
"Mr. Fakir?" she asked, tilting her head back to look up at him. His upside-down face huffed with a sigh.
"What?"
"How to you know Duck is a girl?"
The pen stopped moving.
There was no sound for a few moments, except for the slightest swish of the lake water against the shore.
"Her coloration," he finally answered, and the pen started up again.
"She's yellow."
"Exactly. If she were a boy she would have more colors."
"Oh."
"Rosi…"
"Yes, Mr. Fakir?"
"Does your mother know you've been coming to my dock?"
A small gasp, and then the girls head slumped down with her face out of view.
"Well?"
No. No she didn't. In fact, Rosi was never supposed to roam beyond the block she lived on. If her mother knew she had been coming out all the way to the docks, she would never get to leave her front door. At least, Mother would complain that her doing so would make her look like a bad parent and then ground her until she rotted.
"Maybe," she mumbled.
"Hm…?" He didn't look up from his clump of papers. Rosi continued to swing her legs back and forth.
"Kinda…"
"Right."
"No."
"That's what I thought. Unfortunately," he said, though his tone didn't indicate he found it unfortunate at all, "I simply cannot allow you to continue coming here without your mother's permission."
"But—"
"Sorry."
Rosi began again, "But—" She heard a plop in the water. She looked down, gasping at what she saw. "Mr. Fakir, what is wrong with Duck?"
Wobbling on her thin legs, Duck toppled onto the bank of the pond. She let out a tired, half-hearted quack, her breaths wheezing, and struggled to keep her grip on the sand. Her eyes were half closed, as if in pain. Then, her only sound was a pitiful squeak.
In the blink of an eye, Fakir was beside her, catching her tiny body in his hand and holding her on his lap, seeming to not care if she got his pants all wet.
"What happened?" Rosi peered over the side of the dock, almost unable to breath. Fakir was rubbing the little bird down as she made a few more gasping squeaks. Poor Duck! Rosi thought, stepping in closer to them.
"Not now, Rosi." He wouldn't look at her, nor did he let go of Duck, even when she protested his grip, now that her eyes were opened wider and breaths more relaxed.
"But maybe I can—"
"Go!" His glare shot up at her, but she could see his eyes and mouth twitch as if he was fighting back tears, something she'd never seen a man his age have to do.
Quietly, Rosi stood and walked off, her own tears pooling in her eyes.
The very next day, a small pair of Mary Janes skipped up to the dock, a bag of French bread bumping on their owner's thigh. Fakir didn't even look up, but knew exactly who she was.
"I thought I told you—"
"I just brought some bread for Duck. To make her feel better."
Duck, still appearing a little fatigued but not nearly as bad as she was yesterday, flew up to her feet, shaking a bit midair. Her wings needed to flap much more fiercely than usual just to keep steady, but otherwise she seemed to be doing okay as far as Rosi could see.
"I told you that you shouldn't be flying…" Fakir whispered, helping the bird in her landing with his gentle hands. When Duck actually stuck her tongue at him, Rosi couldn't help but burst out laughing. A duck, sticking their tongue out of a human! It was just so silly!
"Hm." Fakir tightened his lips, but let her feed Duck her bread.
"Teehee, her beak tickles." Rosi patted the bird's head before scooping her up.
"Excuse me, but did I tell you that you could—"
"I'm just putting her in the water! You said you didn't want her flying!" Rosi stretched her hand toward the water, and Duck plopped down onto the surface. "What happened yesterday anyway?"
Fakir shook his head as he sat back down into his chair. "She's just gotten a little older, that's all."
"How old is she?"
He sighed, "I'm not exactly sure, but I've been with her for 9 years."
"Woooow." Rosi gaped at him with genuine amazement, large brown eyes shining, "She's even older than me!"
"Most things are older than you," Fakir said, but it didn't sound as snarly as she expected it.
She gave Duck one last pet and, making sure to give a polite smile to Mr. Fakir (which he returned with a slight twitch of his lip) she made her way off the dock.
"Roswitha Agatha Duerr, where on Earth have you been? Mrs. Edric told me you have been all the way down to the pond. Is that true?" Her mother towered over her, hands on her hips. Rosi cowered in fear, wrapping her hands behind her back. "And look at my carpet, all covered in mud! This carpet was imported from Italy, child!" Rosi looked behind her, and indeed the Italian rug, which was not very soft as she always thought rugs were supposed to be but instead very short, scratchy and detailed with tiny vines and flowers, was sprinkled with mud stains trailing up to her feet. Every day that she had gone to visit Fakir, she had managed to sneak in the back and mix her dirty clothing in with the other laundry, unnoticed. However, today she had been thinking so much of little Duck that she hadn't thought of it. But still, Mother never noticed when she was gone. Why did she notice today? "What is your explanation for all this?"
Think fast…think fast…
"Mr. Fakir has been teaching me!" Rosi spit out. Oh…he's going to be mad…
"Fakir? Oh, I've heard of him…" Her mother crossed her arms, a suspicious look in her eye, "Charon's boy. I hear he's not usually one to interact with small children, a bit of a loner. What does he have to do with you?"
"S-since you don't like me writing stories in lessons…h-he said he can help me write them in my time…" Oh, he was going to be very, very mad. She could only pray that Mother won't call him up to check the accuracy of her excuses.
"I suppose that's reasonable." Her mother turned up her nose, rubbing her chin. "Just don't let him fill your head with any silly fairy tales."
"I won't, Mother."
"Good. Now," her mother clapped her hands, and their grumpy, sleepy-faced housekeeper grabbed Rosi's hand in a failed attempt to act like a real, nice nanny. Her mother began talking to her now, seemingly forgotten that Rosi was even there, "I have business cohorts visiting tonight, and I want her to be a nice, polite, clean young lady to leave a good impression." The daughter barely suppressed a groan as she was lead upstairs. No wonder Mother actually noticed her absence.
The only thing to do was to dream of tomorrow.
"Mr. Fakir! Mr. Fakir! Mr. Fakir!"
"What?"
"You won't believe what I told my Mother! And she believed me!" Rosi kneeled beside his chair, grinning up at him in a way that obviously made him uncomfortable.
"This better not have anything to do with me," Fakir said tentatively as he set his papers in his lap.
"She was wondering why I was coming down to the docks everyday—"
"As any decent mother should."
Rosi stuck out her lip. "Hey, I like it here! Anyway, I told her that it's because you are teaching me to write! Isn't that funny?"
Silence.
A sharp sigh.
"Idiot."
"What!" Rosi stood with a start, marching over to his chair and glaring up at him. She wanted to seem angry, but even she knew he could see her eyes were beginning to water, "That wasn't very—"
"She's going to wonder why you never came home with any stories," he began, glaring off to the side, "and then she's going to wonder what you've actually been doing down here, which means she's going to wonder why you didn't tell her the truth, which means she might think…damn it, this isn't good at all." Fakir groaned, combing back his hair with his fingers. "You really, really need to stop coming down here. I mean it. If you come down here again—"
"I'll be a good student."
Fakir finally looked up at her, eyebrow arched in annoyance. She kneeled beside him, her hands folded. Her eyes looked up at him; big, bright, and pleading. With a groan, he shook his head.
"No, I—"
"Please. I'll be good. I'll be really, really good."
"Absolutely n—"
"I can write. I really, really can! But I'm not allowed to write anything but boring stuff. I want to write stories. Do you know what it's like to really, really want to write stories but not be allowed to do it?"
She took a deep, nervous breath. This was the moment of truth. Her toes rubbed together behind her, and she rested her chin on her folded hands. Fakir's pen tapped on his pad of paper, once, twice, three times.
"Fine."
"YAY!" Popping up from the ground faster then she thought any little girl had ever done in the history of the world, Rosi threw her arms around his neck and jumped for joy. "Thank you sosososo much! You won't regret this!"
"Get off of me."
"Oh…sorry." Blushing, she unraveled her arms and refolded her hands behind her back. Fakir leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead. She quietly watched him do this for many moments, leaning back and forth with impatience. Still, he didn't move, and even Duck seemed to be looking at him oddly.
"Are you okay?"
"No."
"Are you sick?"
"No." He opened his eyes to look at his new student, who greeted him with an ear-to-ear grin. "I'm just annoyed."
"Okay." Rosi grinned even wider, "Mother says that a lot."
"I'd imagine."
"So," She plopped herself down cross-legged onto the dock, staring up at him expectantly. "What are you going to teach me first?"
"Do you have a pen or pencil?"
"No…"
"Do you even have paper?"
"I didn't know you were going to be teaching me today!" Rosi pouted, crossing her arms and pushing out her bottom lip. Fakir moaned and stood up from his chair, standing in front of her.
"Then come back tomorrow and make sure you're prepared." He nodded his head toward Duck with a smile, which instantly fell back to a small frown as he started to walk away.
"Bye, Mr. Fakir!" called the little girl to his retreating back, "and thank you again!"
"Mmhm," was all he said back.
Rosi scooted over to the side of the dock, where Duck was dipping her head under and shaking the water off. Giggling as the droplets hit her knees, the girl pressed her chin onto her fists and stared down at the tiny animal. "You're so small. Even smaller than me."
Duck, staring back up at her with what Rosi could swear was a smile, quacked once, ruffling her feathers.
"But…you're so…so…well, sometimes it's like you think like a person. And Mr. Fakir seems to think like that, the way he talks and smiles at you. How did you to get together in the first place?"
Another couple quacks.
"I can't understand you, silly."
Blinking her bright eyes once, Duck ruffled her feathers again and swam closer.
"Are you his pet?"
The bird swung her head back in forth, in a way that almost seemed like she was shaking her head no! Rosi laughed out loud, lowering her palm so Duck could climb on.
"Try not to get pond water on my dress, please." Rosi cradled Duck the way she had seen Mr. Fakir do it onto her lap, stroking the one long feather on the top of Duck's head that stuck way up into the air. "You're very pretty, Duck. You know that? Sometimes I think I want to bring you home, but I don't think Mother or Mr. Fakir would like that. But you're very, very pretty."
"Quack!"
"You're welcome."
Rosi sat there for a few minutes longer, petting Ducks soft feathery head. As the orange sun started to dip below the trees, she felt her eyes and limbs growing heavier. The crickets began to chirp around her, the dragonflies dancing on the water's surface with their delicate wings bouncing gently as they flew. A few fish bopped their heads up, just to drop back down. The clean, natural smell of the water misted up to the dock. As she looked down, she saw that Duck seemed to have fallen to sleep right there on her lap.
She too would sleep right there on the hard wood if she could, but part of her, the part of her still awake, knew that would b a very dangerous choice.
Patting the duck's head to wake her up, she slowly let Duck back down onto the water, and just as slowly forced her legs to stand. Stretching her arms, she waved a woozy goodbye to her bird friend and trotted away.
"Mr. Fakir! Mr. Fakir! Mr. Fakir!"
"Now what?"
"I have a pencil and paper today." Rosi was on the ground in front of his chair before he even looked back. Indeed, in her hands were eight pencils, four pens, and a two inch pile of paper, all stuffed in her arms and ready to burst out from under them.
Rosi wasn't sure why, but at that moment, Fakir actually chucked at her, with a small smile and everything. It soon ended, though, when he saw her wide-eyed amazement.
"Let's just get started."
"Ok!" She carefully placed each of her supplies on the ground, and, gingerly selecting a small pile of paper as not to cause any crinkles, also picked from her perfectly aligned row of pencils to find the sharpest one. Finally, she looked up at him with rapt attention.
"What do I do first?" she asked.
"First you need to figure out your story idea."
"My…idea?" She cocked her head, then slumped. "I don't have one yet."
"Then writing a story is going to be rather difficult. Without an idea you can't write much, can you?"
Rosi stared down at her blank page for a few moments, completely lost. She raised her pencil as if to write something, but then set it back down again.
"This is hard." She slammed her head down onto her knees.
"It can be. Usually it's much harder than writing the actual story."
She looked up at him in shock. "But how am I even going to get there?"
He sat back in his chair, crossing his fingers over his chest, "If you can't handle it, then you can leave."
"No!" Rosi crossed her arms tightly, doing her best to stamp her foot despite still being sat down, "I'm gonna learn to write if it kills me!"
Staring down at her, he pressed his lips together but didn't say anything else.
"You have persistence, I'll give you that," he finally told her.
"What does persistence mean?"
"It means you keep going, no matter what."
With a thoughtful nod, the girl set her pencil back down onto the paper. "So…can you just give me a little help with my idea?"
"Writing what you know is a good start. Write a memory. Or just an issue in your life that's been bugging you."
She hit the back of her pencil against her mouth a few times. "Okay…" She continued to stare at the paper, the tiny cogs whirling inside her head. "I think I have a good idea."
Fakir flicked his hand through the air, motioning for her to begin writing.
There were no words spoken as Rosi scribbled on her page, her eyes zipping across the page. Faster than even she expected, her page was quickly filled with words, smeared graphite clouding the white. Another letter here, a quick erase there, and she handed it up for him to read.
He cupped his hand under his chin and began.
Once upon a time there was a Princess named Roswitha Bella Lucinda Mai Agatha Lee. She was beautiful and smart and very very very rich. But she was sad too. She was sad because even though she had all the toys and clothes and jewelry in the world in her castle no one ever paid any attention to her. She sat all alone in her room as her Mother the queen talked with all the other queens downstairs over tea and cookies she was not allowed to eat. When she went downstairs to try and talk to them, they always told her to go away and to stop being a bother. And when she tried to talk to the queen after all the other queens had gone the queen told her she was too busy to play, and there was never a time when she wasn't too busy. The king had died years ago when the princess was very young, so he couldn't play with her. So she sat in her room all alone with no one to play with her and she cried. Then the queen yelled at her for crying, so she tried to stop. The queen left and went back out to the kingdom to have more parties. The princess cried then.
But then a wizard came to her door and offered to teach her anything she wanted. "I want to write." She said, and she did. He waved his magic wand and made paper and pencil appear. He had a duck on his shoulder that quacked at her.
So the princess wrote of a land with hundreds of children that all wanted to play with her. The children didn't say that she was too snobby to play because she was a princess because she wasn't too snobby she just had nice things. The children played hide-and-go-seek and tag and a lot of other fun things, and the world was happy and there was light, with enough space to run in and mud puddles to jump in. Everyone asked her if she lived in a castle, and she said yes, and they were jealous, but then she told them that castles weren't very much fun at all because you couldn't do those things.
But then the princess was sad because her story wasn't true. And when she finished writing, she wanted to go into the story. The wizard waved his magic wand. Then she was in the story! And she was happy, and she never had to return to her castle. The princess never cried again, and always laughed.
"That's quite a lot of names for your character," Fakir finally said. Rosi took a moment to register what he had said; she was too busy staring up at him like her world was about to explode. She couldn't help but notice his slight twist of the mouth at the word "character."
"Yeah, I couldn't decide on which one I liked the most so I chose all of them. Is that okay?"
"Well…" He closed his eyes, rubbing his head with one hand and resting it on the top. "Not really. Unless there's a good reason for them to have so many names."
With her eyes cast downward, the girl softly whispered, "Oh."
"Also, some of your sentences are runons—do you know what that means?— some of the details seem out of place, and the overall plot is weak on the details."
Rosi nodded, still not looking up. So her story was bad? Her first story, bad! Oh, she'll never be a great writer! A tear welled in her eye, and she sniff once.
She heard him sigh above her.
"It's just your first story." He read over it again, more quickly this time, "And, to be honest, it's actually pretty decent for a kid your age. It has emotion, which some writers never get in their entire lives."
"Really?" she asked, sitting up again and taking it back from him as he nodded. She looked over her work again, and all of the sudden it looked much nicer than it did before.
"That thing about the king having died," he said suddenly, "Is that true?"
Rosi nodded. "My daddy died when I was one. I don't remember him."
He nodded back, not saying a word.
"But you, you're lucky I guess…" she mumbled, bringing her knees up to her chest. "You still have your daddy Charon."
"Charon is not my father."
Rosi looked at him questioningly, "No?"
"My parents died when I was a kid," he mumbled, just loud enough for her to hear, and he looked to the side. Even she knew he was not interested in telling her anything else. She nodded, but said nothing. Almost unnoticed until she landed, Duck flew (well, flew as well as she could, in short, wobbly bursts) up to nestle herself in Fakir's lap. He blinked in surprise at first, but then his expression softened and his hand rested on her back as she snuggled into his shirt.
"Mr. Fakir?"
"Yes?"
"Will you tell me the story of how you met Duck?"
This question took both Duck and Fakir by visible surprise. Duck quacked excitedly, poking at his side with her beak, urging him on. He, on the other hand, bit his tongue and glanced awkwardly to the side. His little bird quacked louder until he relented, rubbing his forehead with annoyance.
"I found her under the dock and adopted her."
"Oh." Rosi frowned and clicked her tongue. She was hoping for a much more interesting story.
And, apparently, so was Duck. She jabbed Fakir in the side, much harder than before. Another angry squawk, and her beak once again met his stomach.
"Ow!" he snapped, "Fine, fine, I'll tell her." Rosi sat cross-legged on the dock with her eyes cast up expectantly.
After clearing his throat, Fakir spoke.
"Years ago, there was a boy—small, but far too shrouded in darkness for his few years of life, that lived in this very town. That boy, named Fakir, had one large motivation: to protect and defend his friend, a prince he had named Mytho, for said prince had no name of his own—at least, not one that he could remember, since years ago he had shattered his own heart to imprison an evil raven. Now, defending him was not an easy task, as Mytho had the tendency to try and save anything and everything he could see in the least bit of danger, from a child to even just a little bird about to fall off a tree. Because of this, he was a very noble and true prince. However, he was also one in constant danger, as he could not comprehend the risks that come with these instincts. But Fakir was the reincarnation of a knight from the very story Mytho hailed from, a doomed soul that was killed by the claws of the raven before he was able to give the prince any aid, and those obstacles were just ones he felt he needed to conquer. With a jagged birthmark to remind him of his past failure, Fakir swore that he would not repeat that shame.
"Obsessed with his mission, Fakir tried his very best to control and close away Mytho from all those around him. They studied ballet at the local boarding school, where Mytho was allowed near two people: Fakir and his girlfriend, a shadowy girl named Rue. Good, Fakir had thought, everything is going smoothly, and now I won't have to worry. But, as it seemed, fate had other plans. For, just then, a 13-year-old girl named Duck bumbled her way into his life.
"Against Fakir's wishes, this girl Duck managed to worm her way into the matter of the prince's heart, finding the shards one by one and returning them in the form of the mysterious Princess Tutu. Eventually, joined by their common concern for Mytho, Duck and Fakir made a reluctant friendship. And, it seemed, just in time, because Rue, in the form of the raven's evil daughter Kraehe, had secretly soaked a heart shard in raven's blood, letting loose a dark side of Mytho unlike any before. Slowly, the prince began to transform into a hideous crow.
"As Duck and Fakir continued to work together to save their friend, Fakir found himself growing more and more fond of the little bird—because, as he then knew, Duck was not truly a girl, but a duck transformed into a girl by the puppetmaster of a storyteller named Drosselmeyer. More and more, he found himself enjoying her presence and her relentless optimism; a light in any darkness they came across. And the more he tried to resist his feelings, the more he had to face that he was falling in love with her.
"But there came a time that Duck had to sacrifice her human form in order to save Mytho, or the prince would never be whole. Scared and feeling alone, she brought herself to the bottom of this very pond. And there, Fakir confessed his feelings once and for all, promising her that no matter what form she may take, he will stay with her no matter what, for he loved her too much to abandon her. So Duck finally handed Mytho the last heart shard, the necklace that was keeping her human, and returned to her webbed feet, feathers and beak once and for all. From that day forward, she lived in this pond, with Fakir keeping his vow by staying with her until the end of time."
Rosi continued to stare up at him.
"The end," he said.
"But…" She frowned, climbing to her feet and crossing her arms, "What happened to Mytho? And Rue?"
"Mytho made her his princess and they left this world together."
"And the raven?" Rosi asked, leaning on Fakir's chair, "And how did Mytho get cured of the raven's blood? And why did Drosslemeyer—"
"Look, this story is long and complicated. I told you how I met Duck, which is what you asked. Anything more would probably just confuse you."
The girl blushed slightly, "I'm kinda already confused."
"Exactly."
Rosi looked down to see Duck with her eyes closed; feathers fluffed up and cuddled into Fakir's lap.
"Mr. Fakir?"
"Yes?"
"Did you just make that story up?"
He was quiet.
"Because it seems like a fairy tale, and Mother didn't want me hearing those."
There was quiet for a few more moments. Then:
"Yes, yes I did. I found her under the dock, like I told you before."
Duck opened one eye to glare up at him. He didn't look down at her, only raising his hand to stroke her head.
The next day, after their lesson, Fakir didn't set Duck down into the water like usual. Instead, he kept her in his arms, even as he started to walk home.
"Mr. Fakir, what are you doing? Why are you taking Duck home?" Rosi called after him as she stacked her writing supplies in her thin arms.
"I'm taking her home for the night so she can get more rest." He didn't look back, but Duck did, giving Rosi a small quack goodbye.
Rosi waved back, and she could see Fakir tighten her hold on his bird. Curious, the girl set her supplies at the corner of the dock and followed him down the path, silent like a mouse (as her housekeeper always said). He lead her into the woods by the pond, just enough in the shadows to be private but not completely cut off from the other townsfolk. The mud seeped up her Mary-Janes, but she didn't mind; Fakir seemed to have a knack for distracting her like that.
Peeking over a bush, she saw him enter his house, a simple but pleasant wood home with a vine of ivy climbing up one corner. The windows lacked drapes and there was not so much as a mat in front of the door, but for some reason that didn't surprise her at all. While her front door was an original carving from some man Mother paid very much, whose smooth wood was forbidden to be slammed in order to protect its precious shine, his was cracked, chipped and faded, quite clearly used and used harshly.
She bet he got to slam his door.
Despite the plainness and lack of decoration, it seemed like one of the most personal and…well, homey houses she had ever seen. There was simply nothing artificial about it; nothing there simply to be shown off. She wanted a house like that when she grew up.
He disappeared through the front door.
Rosi wished she could go in after him, just to see what his world was like. She wondered if he had pictures on his walls, and who they were of, what books he read, if he kept any more pets, or who he wrote his letters to. She wondered if the story he had told her yesterday was actually true, as incredible as that idea may be, and why he never let her see any of the stories he wrote.
She almost went forward to knock.
Instead, she turned back and headed home.
The day after that, Duck wasn't there at all.
"Why didn't you bring her back to the pond today?" Rosi asked, drawing out her idea for her newest tale.
"She was tired, so I gave her more rest." Fakir was awfully quiet this afternoon, and he was always looking off in a slight daze, as if his mind was preoccupied with something far away. He spoke everything in a slightly mumbled, halfhearted way that was sometimes even hard to hear. "Now keep working on those characters."
"Ok." A doodle of a kind-hearted elephant named Eugene formed in the corner of Rosi's paper. He was allowing all the animals in the jungle to sleep on his back, but soon enough he had too many, and then he couldn't run from the army ants (she had learned about them in science, what gross bugs!) that were headed his way, so he…well, she hadn't thought that far yet.
Fakir stared off into the pond waters.
"Mr. Fakir?" Rosi asked quietly.
"Yes?"
"Is Duck sick?"
"She's just a bit old. She'll be fine if she sleeps some more," he stated firmly. Rosi half-wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself.
The next day, Duck was not there again. Rosi didn't think Fakir spoke two words to her the entire afternoon; only staring out into the pond and occasionally biting his lip. The silence hung in the air like a wet blanket, weighed down by unspoken tension. There were so many questions she knew she should ask, but couldn't find the words to do so. Once, she thought she saw his eyes glisten, but no…he's a grownup. A man grownup. He wouldn't cry.
She walked home in silence, staring at the path in front of her with her mouth pressed closed.
There was no one there the next time she returned to the dock.
Even Fakir's chair sat lonely in the middle of the aged wood, with no one to keep it company. She slowly walked towards it, her feet tap…tap…tapping on the deck's thin surface. She touched the chair's seat. No warmth. No one had sat there today.
Was she early? Was he late? No, she knew he must spend any free second he had at that lake, since every time she passed it from any distance she saw his back bent over a piece of paper. He would never be late.
But then where was he?
Then, the thought popped into her mind.
Oh no.
Her heart sunk to her stomach as she took off running. She ripped through the woods, flinging branches and bushes out of her way as she pounded down the path. Her side started to ache and her breaths grew raspy, but she didn't care; she needed to get to that house.
As soon as she saw the little brown wall with the trail of ivy, she urged her already sprinting legs to run just a little faster, just enough for her to get there just a few seconds before...
Then, she heard it. His voice, mumbling something she could not make out. It was coming from the backyard.
Her thin little six-year-old legs were heavier than lead. Part of her didn't want to go through the white gate that was blocking her from going into that yard, just so she could not confirm that what she was almost sure had happened did. But part of her knew that there was no getting around this, and she should at least show her respect.
Taking one long, deep breath, she opened the gate.
The first thing she saw was Fakir's back, hunched over on the ground in a way she had never seen him do. His hands dug into the uncut grass, tight enough to turn white from his grip. His chest heaved and collapsed, and she heard him sob. Fakir…was crying.
She had never seen a grown man cry before.
She walked forward, quieter than thought she'd ever been before. As she sat by him, she saw the little box in front of him, wooden and delicately carved with vines and water grasses. Rosi almost wanted to reach forward and trace its carvings, but she even she knew how disrespectful it would be. She simply sat there in silence as the already heavy weight in her heart grew even heavier.
Fakir looked up to see her, and wiped away his tears. He tensed and snapped his head away from her.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.
"I wanted…" she started, but to be honest, she couldn't give a real reason. She just wanted to be there, for him, for Duck. She may have only known the little bird for two weeks, but even then she could feel the cold tears running down her cheeks.
He sighed, relaxing slightly and hanging his head back down to star at the box.
"I should have seen this coming sooner," he said as breaths catching in his throat, "I think a part of me didn't want to believe it, wanted to think the time she spent as a human would have given her our lifespan…"
The time she spent human?
"But I was just fooling myself." He hunched over again, now resting his elbows on his knees and sighing deeply. His dark hair drifted into his eyes until they were completely obscured from sight. There was a long silence: Rosi not knowing what to say, Fakir not wanting to say anything at all.
"You should go," he finally whispered, and never looked back up at her.
She did. But from the corner of her eye, she saw something that sparked her curiosity: a writing desk, just as cracked and creased from use as his rocking chair, absolutely smothered in torn and crumpled pages. Without making a sound (though part of her suspected that he knew, just couldn't bring himself to care), she first stepped through the back door into the house, met by a sharp smell of ink and almost too warm air. Part of her wanted to explore further, just to see…No, Rosi! She thought to herself. Snapping her mind back into place, she focused on the papers, to what secrets of Fakir they held. She wasn't trying to be intrusive, really she wasn't, but she couldn't help but wonder what he had been doing on that desk.
Reaching forward to grasp one of the papers, she unraveled it, and gasped. On it were increasingly scribblish words, the last of each sentence furiously scratched out, each one angrier than the last. Some words were blotted and smeared with what looked like tiny water droplets. Squinting, she could barely make out the words.
Duck finally, deep inside her, found the strength to stand and quack, slowly gaining health back…but then she fell again and.-
The last words were unreadable due to the black lines covering them.
Duck found she could open her mouth and eat on her own again, and she thankfully took a nice slice of fresh bread…but then-
More sentences like that, same system, further down the page and as she opened more, she found they were all the exact same way. Finally, she opened the newest at the top of the pile, finding it to be the most desperate of them all.
She may have struggled to keep her eyes open, but it was just a momentary setback. Fluttering them with determination, she was going to…she was going to…-
Her breaths may have slowed near stop, but they were quick to grow more stable and-
She was going to-
She had to-
Please Please Please Please
She finally
Only a single line was drawn across the last word, short and lightly, as if he had finally given up. She could read it perfectly clearly.
died.
"Put that down and get out." Rosi looked up in the direction of the cold voice, to see Fakir standing in the doorway. He didn't look angry, as she expected, but tired. Tired and sad. And so she did as she was told without a fight.
She walked past him, out to the yard and back though the gate. She wanted to tell him that she didn't understand, what were all the papers and writings about? But she knew that even if she did, he would never answer, and there were some things that were meant to be mysteries, at least to her. There were many times in her trek back to the woods that she wanted to spin around and go back, but something, some force, that stopped her from doing so, and she continued to drift back, mind everywhere except where she was.
That little duck, a bird so small yet so loved.
And what if that story he had told her…what if it was true?
And that moment, she knew. It was true. One hundred percent true. That duck had once been a girl, a girl he loved dearly. And that girl was now lying in a tiny wooden box. If others were to glance inside, they would see a small dead animal, but he saw a treasure. His love. His love dead of old age long before he was.
Once again, she felt tears sting her eyes.
Eventually, the woods cleared and she saw the glistening waters of the pond. She stared out to the dragon flies, the gliding waterbugs and gulping fish. Everything was as it should be, everything was as perfect and at peace as a sunny day could be. Except for the one thing that was missing.
She stared at that pond for she-didn't-know-how-long, watching it go about its day as if something so important hadn't been lost forever. But, she supposed, to the rest of the world she was just a bird.
Then suddenly, a rustle came from the woods. Startled, she dove into the grasses, only to see Fakir emerge from them, box in hand and tears still running down his face. And so, for the first time in weeks and the last time in forever, she nestled herself into the grass and watched him.
He knelt by the pond, gripping it as if he never wanted to let it go. But with a long, shaky sigh, a small kiss on the lid, and one last stroke across its surface, he gently pushed Duck's box into the pond, letting it drift past his fingers. It slowly floated just a few feet out, as if not wanting to leave Fakir either. But, perhaps Duck decided it was time, and the wood started to dip into the water before it was submerged into the murky depths.
Fakir collapsed into the mud. He wasn't crying, at least not more than he was before. He simply stayed kneeled over, face to the ground, unmoving. He stayed there for the longest time, breathing slowly and carefully, until he finally stood, also slowly and carefully, and gazed out over the water once again.
"Thank you, Duck. Thank you…so…I l—" his words seemed to catch in his throat as he started to tear up again, and his eyes closed. And, much to Rosi's surprise, he didn't walk away. He danced.
At first, it wasn't clear, but as his feet started to glide to soundless music and his arms reached out to hold the hand of an invisible partner, she knew he had to be. The dance was unhurried but passionate, his movements only slight and soft, more of a memory than a performance. And, as he turned in a circle with face towards the sky, she could almost see the human girl he wished was beside him.
It wasn't long before his movements ended and he again just stood there, hand running through his hair like she'd seen him do a thousand times before.
And then, he walked away, disappearing once again into the woods. And this time, Rosi didn't follow him.
The truth was, I never spoke him again. He never gave me another writing lesson; in fact, I never went to that dock after that, not once. Occasionally I would see him from a long, long distance, staring out to the pond, and even sometimes walking through the town, even with another person from time to time. The last time I visited that town, back around my thirtieth birthday, I saw him buying fruit from a stand, hair just so starting to grey. I thought of walking up to him and trying to speak of those two weeks, but I couldn't figure out what to say and then he was gone, just like that.
He was my first writing teacher, but he taught me so much more than that. He taught me of magic. And not just the magic of storybook princes and the magic that can turn ducks into girls and back again, but something so much more powerful.
The magic of love.
Formulaic? Perhaps. But the honest truth. And as I sit here now, pen in hand, I know what I want the last line of my newest story to be.
Thank you, Mr. Fakir. And thank you, Duck.
Please R&R!