Twisted Strings of Fate

Chapter 15

There are always two or more sides of the same story.

The breakfast table was a mixture of emotions. Huey and Webby were at the height of excitement, for after many hours of researching, they would be the center of attention as they revealed their mysteries. Huey's brothers were more reserved, especially since in the past two days, they had both experienced frightening adventures at the hands of Jim Starling. And while the triplets had learned to shake off danger like water off a…well…a duck, it didn't sit well with them that the one calling himself Negaduck still remained in the mansion.

Della and Donald sat with twin expressions of disapproval. They also didn't like that Jim Starling was still nearby, albeit more secured than Fort Knox. They had had a heated argument with their uncle bright and early that morning about keeping maniacs inside the house while there were kids present. Their point would have carried weight if they hadn't at one time or another been guilty of the same crime in their youth.

Mrs. Beakley looked haggard, a far cry from her usual "neat as a button" appearance. She had stayed up all night, keeping an eye on Starling through the security cameras, just in case Scrooge McDuck's contingency plans failed. For once, she was sitting at the table with everyone else, being served a breakfast she didn't cook, a sight that only came around on Mother's Day when Webby took on the chore.

It was Charity, Launchpad, Fenton and Darkwing who took on the duties of Mrs. Beakley that morning, although the lovebird had to coerce the latter two to help. In the kitchen, she had whipped up pancakes from scratch, homemade syrup, and directed the boys into cooking up eggs and bacon.

Launchpad, familiar with his friend's command of a kitchen, had flipped pancakes like a happy robot, making sure each reached a golden brown.

Darkwing had grumbled about how the bacon grease that was popping angrily at him would ruin his costume. However, he did volunteer to make the coffee, and somehow had made the bland beans that the Duck family used every day to smell and taste as if a Starbeaks was in the kitchen.

Fenton, in charge of scrambling eggs, was up to the challenge even though he had never cooked a day in his life. Unfortunately, since he fell asleep with the Gizmoduck lenses still in his eyes, his vision was blurred and had ended up burning his first batch.

The four, after serving everyone, sat and ate with the Duck family. Launchpad was his usual happy, animated self, but Charity was more reserved, conscientious that the danger the others had gone through lately was her fault. Fenton had a piece of Gizmoduck at the table and was more concerned with fixing it than eating.

"If I blow something up, I'm sorry," Fenton said as the piece of armor whined and coughed from the scientist's attention.

Darkwing, despite getting so much sleep last night, looked just as tired as Mrs. Beakley. Used to late, late nights and sleeping in, his body protested moving around at this time of day. The only thing keeping him upright was the mug of coffee in his hands, and he proactively kept the coffee pot close by.

Scrooge took this all in as he glared down the table. "Finally, we have everyone here. No more interruptions. No more kidnapping, no trips out of town, no bad guys, no anything. This meeting is happening now."

"I'm sure we're all in agreement that we want none of those things to happen again," Louie said in his usual blasé way.

"Right. Huey. Webby. Would you like to share what you have found?" Scrooge asked, waving an open palm at them.

Webby turned to the red-clad triplet. "You go first."

"Thank you," Huey said, nodding his head. He pulled out a thin folder that had all his notes and the articles he printed off of the internet. "My first line of thought went to the origin of the story of the two swan sisters. Webby had said that it sounded familiar, and there is a reason that Uncle Scrooge's library had no information on it. It's because it was turned into a children's fairy tale."

He pulled out a picture of two ballet dancers, one dressed in white, the other in black, mirroring each other. "Swan Lake."

Dewey and Louie stuck out their tongues at the thought of dancing in tights.

Huey ignored them as he told the most popular version of Swan Lake, about a princess who was transformed into a wild swan by an evil sorcerer. She would only transform back into herself at night and only near a lake that was made by the tears of the princess's mother. One night, a prince, who was hunting in the forest, saw the princess transform and fell in love with her. To break the spell, he was going to announce at a party that he was going to marry the princess. But the sorcerer came to the party in disguise along with his daughter who looked like the princess. When the prince mistook the sorcerer's daughter for the princess, his betrayal sealed the spell, forcing the princess to remain as a wild swan. Rather than live like an animal, the princess took her own life. The prince, seeing that his love was dead, also took his own life.

Dewey and Louie had started to nod off since Huey had recited the story of the swan princess in great detail, adding his own commentary to the narration. However, at the end, Louie jerked out of his half-sleep and Dewey nearly choked on the bite of pancake he was chewing.

"You mean they died?" Louie exclaimed. "What kind of kid's story is that?"

"Many of the fairy tales that are told to you as children have an older and darker version," Mrs. Beakley explained. "They were created that way to be cautionary stories to teach children to behave and not break rules, much like Little Red Riding Hood."

"Don't talk to strangers. Stay on the path," Charity added. "So what does the story of the Swan Princess teach?"

"Considering that the story's origin is from your family history, it doesn't necessarily need a moral. Some stories were dark because life back then was hard," Huey said. "There were other versions of Swan Lake, but most of them ended in the death of the princess, the prince or the sorcerer or a combination of the three."

"That doesn't bode well," Fenton said. Even though his eyes hadn't left the Gizmoduck armor he was tinkering with, he had been listening attentively. "But it does fit in with Charity's family's story."

"Wasn't there a version where the curse was broken by a vow of love or a marriage proposal?" Charity asked with a shrug.

"Exactly!" Webby exclaimed, sitting up straight with her eyes wide. "Which is why—"

Huey quickly interrupted. "Webby, I'm not done. This was my research." When the excited Webby closed her mouth, he continued. "Yes, but those are more modern versions for a more 'family friendly' audience. After doing all the research I could on Swan Lake, I tried looking for other fairy tales that had to do with sisters, swans and love spells. A lot of them had similar themes, mainly of sisters where one is good and one is bad. One black, the other white."

"But in Charity's story, it was the black sister that was the good one," Darkwing broke in. "And in Swan Lake, the two girls weren't even sisters."

"Nice observation," Huey said. "I read through a few articles about that. It appears that Swan Lake was translated from several languages. The princess and the sorcerer's daughter were sometimes referred to as the light swan and the dark swan, meaning good and evil, not the color of their feathers. After so many years, the colors of the swans may even have been switched due to superstitious belief."

"The two swans and their feather colors match," Charity noted. "But the stories aren't even remotely similar. It has nothing to do with my family's curse. Why do you believe Swan Lake originated from my family?"

"I was about to get to that," Huey said proudly, taking out a few more papers from his folder. "This is a map of the US, Europe and part of Asia. This red line represents all the countries that had their own version of Swan Lake, the farther east, the older the version. And here is the same map, showing Charity's family line as they emigrated from one place to another. See a connection?"

The two maps were almost identical.

Charity sat up straighter. "I—I didn't know that my family came from all those places." She reached out a hand for Huey to pass the paper over. "Where did you get this information?"

"I called your mom," Huey said with a grimace.

"How did that go?"

"She hung up on me. Then I called your step-dad, who gave me your grandfather's phone number, and he told me all of this."

"Oh, that makes sense," Charity said, slumping. "He does have the ol' family journals."

"The what?"

"My family has kept a set of journals about our curse that gets passed down through the generations," Charity explained. "When one starts to fade or falls apart, whoever is keeper of the journals transcribes them to another book."

"Why didn't you mention this earlier?" Huey demanded. "That is a wealth of information. There might even be a clue about the curse."

Charity leaned back, unsure how she felt about being chewed out by a child. "I'm sorry, but I didn't think they'd be relevant. I've read through them a few times already, and they're just stories about how everyone in my family fell in love with heroes and complained about their aches and pains. There's only, like, six of them. Nobody wrote more than a few entries during their life time."

Scrooge could see Huey was itching to get his hands on those journals. "Is there any way your grandfather would lend us the journals?" he asked calmly.

"Yeah. I'll call him and see if he'll send them over," Charity said. "Although, he lives in Florida, so he might have to send them through the mail. Maybe he can over-night them."

"Really?" Huey looked hungry for that knowledge. "Great. Now where was I?" He shifted through his folder.

"Why Swan Lake is relevant?"

Huey brightened. "Right! So, my theory is that Swan Lake may not only be an altered version of your family's curse, but it may give us clues as to how to break your curse. There was one thing in the story that caught my attention that may be the key."

"True love!" Webby broke in, looking excited.

"Uh…no," Huey said, shaking his head. "The lake."

Charity's eyes widened. "It was at the lake that the princess was cursed, and she would transform at the lake." A chill ran down her body. "Could it really be that simple?"
"Well…I don't think so. After all, I think we'll have to find the exact lake that was used in the spell. There are hundreds of lakes in that part of the world, and that's if it still exists. Without a definite area and time period, it could take years to try each and every one."

Charity frowned at the map. It was still a daunting mission, but at least it was something. Huey had made so much progress in a few days. Had her family even tried to break the curse? Or were they too beaten down to believe that it was possible?

"Okay, so, let's say we did find the right lake. Then what?" Charity asked. "Do I just jump in? Recite a spell? Dance naked by the light of the moon? Animal sacrifice?"

Dewey and Louie snickered at more than one of her suggestions. Darkwing raised an eyebrow and smiled at her.

Huey shrugged. "I don't know. In Swan Lake, it never officially states that the prince was trying to break the curse. It's assumed that his proposing to the princess at a party would be what would break the curse, but considering your family's history, I don't think that would be the case."

"So, it's a dead end," Charity said, putting the map back on the table.

Huey hated letting others down. "I'm sorry. It's just the older something is, the harder it is to research it."

"No, no. You did a really good job. This is more than I expected," Charity said, trying to build up the duckling's mood. "Maybe we'll find something in my family's journals. After all, I wasn't looking for a way to break the curse in them. And having someone else read them other than my family may be key."

That did make Huey feel better. "I'm afraid that is all I have. As I told Uncle Scrooge, we didn't find much. At this point, my suggestion is that we go here…" Huey pointed at his map in an area where Russia, China and Mongolia met, "…and see if we can find anything. Perhaps they have books and stories that haven't been recorded and posted on the Internet."

"That is some good work there, Huey," Scrooge said proudly, patting his nephew on the back.

"Thanks Uncle Scrooge," Huey said, sitting down. He took his first bite of pancake and chewed mechanically.

"Okay, Webby, you're next," Scrooge said, seeing that the duckling was ready to burst.

She flipped onto the table. "Alright. While Huey was researching the history of the curse, I went delving into the ocean of magic spells to see if the magical community had a record of Charity's curse and love spells in general."

"I did that already," Huey interrupted, eating his food with more gusto. "There's nothing on the Internet except stuff about herbs and using stones for different energies."
"That's because the magic community doesn't put stuff on the Internet," Webby explained. "Lena says they like to keep it a secret. I mean, come on, can you imagine if they had a website on how to make a shadow army like Magica did? That would be an epic fail, am I right?"

"Is it on the Internet?"

All eyes turned to Fenton.

He smiled. "Just curious. No harm in asking."

"Anyway, I talked to Lena for a while, but I couldn't get a lot of information out of her," Webby continued. "She's camping with Violet's family, so she only gave me the barest of information on love curses. She pretty much said that love curses are about the simplest of spells and can easily be broken."

"What?!" Charity exclaimed, slamming her hands onto the table. "Is that…really true?" Her face was a mixture of hope and disbelief.

"That's what she said," Webby confirmed. "She told me she has a lot of Magica's spell books, and there's tons of love spells in them, and each spell has a simple solution to break it."

Charity shook her head. "It—it can't be that easy."

Webby shrugged. "I can't hurt trying every single one of them. Quite a few talk about making clothing, burning clothing or cleaning clothes. Some are potions that you drink or bathe in. A few just need you to burn a few herbs."

"Lena told you all of this?" Mrs. Beakley asked.

"Well…no. I actually…broke into her house and borrowed her books," Webby said with a sheepish smile.

"Webbigail!"

"With permission! With permission!" Webby insisted. "Lena said I could. And I made sure not to break anything and locked all the doors when I was done."

Charity looked at the other ducks at the table and found it disturbing that nobody else was concerned about Webby's B and E. Was this the norm here?

"Okay, let's back this up," Charity said, holding out her hands. "First, who is this Lena? And how does she know so much about magic?"

"Oh, Lena is my friend that was the shadow of an evil sorceress named Magica de Spell, who tried to take over the world with shadow magic. She earned her freedom and her life when I was able to free her from the world of shadows and now she lives with my other friend, Violet, and her family."
Charity didn't say anything for a while as she registered this. "Okay, then. Carry on."

"Well, after reading all the spells, there were a variety of ways to break them, but the most common is…" Here Webby took a deep breath. "…True love's kiss."

"I think we can rule that out," Charity said. "I'm pretty sure true love's kiss had happened somewhere down the line or I wouldn't exist."

"Maybe…Or maybe everyone in your family just married the wrong person," Webby countered. "It may even have been part of the original spell that everyone in your family is fated to never kiss their one true love."

"That seems…unlikely…" It was obvious that Charity was uncomfortable with this.

Webbigail was not discouraged by this comment. "We can't rule it out entirely," she said with a determined nod. "So, just in case, I think Charity should kiss all of them."

Darkwing was more awake than before, and it had nothing to do with the coffee.

There was the sound of tools clattering to the table as Fenton dropped them.

Oblivious that the conversation regarded him, Launchpad ate his pancakes loudly. He loved Charity's cooking.

"K-k-k-k-k—" Fenton stuttered, unable to get past the first sound of the word.

"As much as I would like to explore this line of thinking," Darkwing said, "I don't like the idea of Charity kissing Gizmod—I mean, Jim Starling. She's been through enough."

"Slip of the tongue there, huh?" Mrs. Beakley noticed.

"Honest mistake," Darkwing waved off the housekeeper's words. "Even if this theory is sound, there's no way Starling is Charity's true love."

"He was Charity's first," Webby said. "It's not like Charity fell in love with him when he was crazy. And it doesn't change the fact that she's still in love with him."

Charity sank farther into her seat, feeling as if she was no longer part of the conversation but merely the subject.

"She's right," Fenton said, recovering from his earlier embarrassment. "Scientifically, we can't rule that out. In fact, if there's anyone who's least likely to be Charity's 'true love', it would be you, Darkwing Duck, since she only bonded with you through association with Starling."

"What do you mean by that?" Darkwing growled, standing up.

"Calm down," Mrs. Beakley said sternly. "This isn't some ego contest. We're here to help Charity, not fight amongst ourselves. And if you want my opinion, this plan isn't ideal, Webby."

"But—all the fairy tales, they end with a kiss," Webby said almost sadly. "It just made sense."

"But in those fairy tales, there was only one prince," Mrs. Beakley stated. "I don't think the real world works that way."

"But it does. In fact, Charity's situation is perfect," Webby said, her excitement building. "She already has four of the major arch-types of romantic interests." She started counting on her finger. "We have the bad-boy, the best-friend, brotherly type, the dark and brooding character, and the clumsy, dorky nerd."

"Hey!" Fenton exclaimed.

Darkwing snorted, appreciating the little girl's apt descriptions.

"It's like the perfect story," Webby continued. "I'm not saying that Charity should go right out and kiss all of them, but if we get Starling on some meds and she dates them all to set the mood, it would work!"

"Kill me now," Charity moaned, having sunk almost completely out of sight. "Since when did my life turn into The Bachelorette?"

"Webby, where did you get some of these idea?" Mrs. Beakley inquired, frowning with disapproval.

"From the books you keep under your bed," Webby answered honestly.

"I…uh…" Stunned, Mrs. Beakley turned a vibrant shade of red before clearing her throat. "We'll talk about that later. For now, we cannot treat Charity's situation like it's a story. In her case, I don't know if the usual rules are going to apply."

Webby looked colossally disappointed. "Then I'm afraid that throws out most of everything else I have to say. I guess everything. It wasn't that great of an idea anyway."

"Now, now, lass. Don't be too hard on yourself. Not all ideas can be gold," Scrooge said kindly. "Even the farfetched theories might help us to get a sense of where to go. It reminds me of the time when—"

Louie made a groaning noise. "Not another 'Reminds me of the time' stories. You walked to school uphill, both ways, in snow storms. You didn't have phones, Nintendo, electricity or fun when you were a kid. You're old. We get it."

Scrooge glared at his nephew. "We also had something called respect back then, too."

"What Scrooge is trying to say, Webby, is that there are no bad ideas," Mrs. Beakley interpreted. "We're all stumped by this curse. Who knows, it might be the lead we were waiting for."

"Well, okay. I was just thinking that if Lena's spell books don't work, that we should consult an expert," Webby suggested

"In magic?" Scrooge asked. "I don't know. Most of the magic-users I know are evil, Lena being the exception."

"No, not an expert in magic," Webby said, her smile back. "An expert in love."

"A love expert?" Louie asked, his face twisted in disbelief. "That's not a thing, right?"

Dewey slicked back his hair. "As it so happens, that would be a-me." He pointed both his thumbs at his chest.

"The only love you're an expert at is loving yourself," Louie shot at his brother. "Who are we going to ask? A dating service?"

"No, we're going to ask the biggest name in the love industry," Webby said, grabbing a book she had left next to her plate. "The one and only, Aphrodite." She opened the book to a painting of a beautiful, naked woman walking out of the sea.

As one, Della, Donald, and Scrooge gasped, their muscles tensed and eyes wide.

Huey hid his eyes, Dewey stared as if he couldn't look away, and Louie took a picture with his phone. Mrs. Beakley took the book away.

Webby turned her head to the three adults. "Did I say something wrong?"

Della and Donald looked away, fidgeting nervously.

"Oh, not really. It's just that talking to Aphrodite is impossible," Scrooge said, frowning.

Charity laughed. "Whew, thank goodness. For a minute there, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. I mean, all this talk about shadow magic and sorcerers, I don't know if I could handle on top of that that the Greek gods are real, too."

The Duck family's' facial expression stopped her laughter.

"Please tell me they're not real."

"Oh, they're real. A real pain," Scrooge said. "And if we have to go back to Ithaquack, it'll be too soon."

"They're real?" Charity could feel a headache coming. It was just too much.

"We've met Zeus, Selene, Storkules, Hermes, and a bunch of the lesser gods," Huey named off. "Yeah, they're real."

"Storkules is Uncle Donald's best friend," Louie added.

Donald grumbled.

Charity felt her lower eye-lid twitch before taking a deep breath. "Okay. I'll go with it. I mean, it's not as crazy as some of the stuff Darkwing Duck did."

"Hey!" Darkwing exclaimed.

"Not you. In the TV show," Charity defended. "Okay, so let's go talk to Aphrodite. Heck, let's talk to all the gods. They're gods. They're old. They must know something about my curse."

Scrooge cleared his throat. "It's not as easy as that. As I said, nobody sees Aphrodite."

"Why? Does she have a full schedule? Too many dates?" Darkwing asked sarcastically.

Scrooge began speaking, his tone changing to indicate he was narrating. "Unlike the other gods, who control lightning, the sea, the moon, the sun, she controls emotions and people. It is said that anyone who is in love falls under her domain, including gods. Even Zeus is afraid of her."

Charity inwardly shivered. If that was the case, she understood why

Della picked it up from there. "It's even worse than that. According to Selene, no mortal has ever seen the face of Aphrodite and lived. Any man who was to look upon her face would see the most beautiful woman in existence and would become enthralled. He would have no will of his own, and if removed from her presence, his heart would burst."

"Of a broken heart," Charity finished.

"No, it would literally explode," Della corrected. "Aphrodite is a cold, heartless witch who has no regard for the lives of men. Her only concern is to twist the loves of her favorite mortals, meddling in their lives to create drama and intrigue for her own entertainment."

Charity gulped. Her life was complicated enough. She didn't need a crazy, love goddess screwing around with it.

"Hey, you don't think…" Donald began, sitting up straighter. "She couldn't be…doing that already? To Charity?"

Everyone felt it at once. It was as if there was another presence in the room, a person who was there but not physically. The atmosphere was so heavy, no one—not even Fenton—could deny that someone else was watching them.

"Well, that's done it," Scrooge growled. "It looks as if we're going to Ithaquack."

"Wait, what about the whole looking-at-her-face-will-turn-you-into-a-love-zombie thing?" Louie asked. "I'm too young for that kind of thing."

"Don't worry, because I have thought this through," Webby said, striking a pose. "For you see, I am no man."

There was a pause as everyone drank in the drama.

"She's been waiting to say that for days," Huey added, the only one not in awe of Webby's line.

(Author's Notes: Yay, I managed to post before midnight my time. Yes, I know this is a short chapter, but it just felt right to put a short one after a bunch of long ones. Time for a bit of a breather for Charity and a little bit of information about the curse. Thank you everyone who followed, favorited and commented. I've never been so passionate about writing a fanfic before, and I owe it to those readers who have sent me comments. Thank you again. See you next week.)