The first answer to the first question about the first thing Duckling could remember asking about was: "Because you're ugly."

When Duckling grew older, he remembered more and more. He remembered all the questions he could ask and all the answers he received, but HE had many and THEY were all the same.

"Why doesn't my mother love me?"

"Because you're ugly."

"Why don't my brothers love me?"

"Because you're ugly."

"Why am I always so alone?"

"Because you're ugly."

All the most important questions he could ask had the same answer. The same thing. The same plague, the same curse.

The day his mother threw him away:

He only had one question to ask; it was a question he had asked a thousand times before and a question he would ask a thousand times again. But the only time it would ever really matter was right now.

"Why don't you love me?" Duckling whispered. If ducks could cry, he would cry. But ducks couldn't cry, and every cell in his ugly, beautiful body screamed with pain because he hadn't the tears to shed it.

His mother didn't look at him the way a mother should. And he hurt. "Because you're ugly," she said simply.

"I- I- I don't try to be," Duckling said. "I try to be good. I try to be beautiful."

"But you aren't. You try and try and try, and the best you ever do is 'ugly'."

"Please don't make me leave," Duckling begged. He crumpled at his mother's feet; he touched her feathers and tucked himself beneath her body, like his beautiful sisters could do. She moved away.

"Please!" Duckling wailed. "I love you! I love you! I love you!" He didn't want to leave. They hated him here, because his feathers were gray and his neck was so stringy and the shape of his beak was all wrong. But his family was the only thing he had. He slept outside their circle late at night; he followed them and ate the things they threw away; he chased the sticks and rocks and leaves they finished playing with. He couldn't feel his mother's love but he could see it. It was the only thing he had.

"Duckling, you are wrong. There's something wrong with you. You don't belong here, and now you have to leave."

"But this is where I live! This is where my family is! Mother, this is where you are for me!" If, if, if. If only his egg hadn't fallen. If only he had a real mother, one to whom he was beautiful. He could have been ordinary. He could have been regular. He could have been perfect. But now he was 'wrong'. Fate is a great and terrible woman, and she takes such joy in changes most profound when for the worse. "You made me," Duckling gasped. He was in so much pain, and if he wasn't so very ugly his mother would cry with pain to see him. "You grew me. You birthed me. My egg was part of you. You made me."

"I unmake you. I don't want you. I reject you," said his mother, because she was simple and normal and she had never known what he knew now. She didn't know how this hurt. She wouldn't care.

How can parents be so cruel?

Duckling laid his body down upon the ground, stretched his graceless neck upon the ground, and spread his floppy wings upon the ground. Fox, take me, he thought. Hawk, take me. Take me, wolf. Take my guts and my throat and my life. Come and take away my pain. "I am part of you, my mother," he keened.

"You are nothing," she said. She was beautiful, for a duck. She had shiny green feathers and a bill as flat as river stones. Her children were beautiful. It was so important to be beautiful. She turned to go.

Duckling sprang to his feet and scrambled for her; she of hatred and of cruelty; she who was all he had left. His mother turned and bit him. Duckling screamed, but even the noise was ugly. A man would hear a funny honking noise, and he would laugh. But Duckling was screaming.

"YOU MADE ME!" Duckling screamed. "YOU RUINED ME! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO ME!" He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, because he was just a baby and babies don't know what else to do. Alone now and in so, so much pain, Duckling raked at his body with his claws and bit his legs and wings until blood came. The pain inside him became the pain without, and after a while, he was empty. Now was the time a mother would find him again, croon in his ears, warm his tiny body with her touch.

And yet he was alone.

"Why can't I be beautiful?" Duckling whispered, and his little voice was hoarse. A man would laugh to hear.

If I was beautiful, they would love me. If I was beautiful, I would be loved. If I was beautiful, they'd all gather around me, and touch me like I want to be touched. With LOVE.

In months, when the cold snows touched his body so alone; in months and months, when the new spring life burst into view around him and screamed inside his eyes with colors that made him weep to see; in months and months and many, many months; he would look again into the water's shining surface and what he saw would be so incredibly amazing. So. Incredibly. Amazing.

Some people think now that the beautiful swan left to find his own people, and the mother whose nest fate had laughed when she stole him from. This is not true. Swan was the Duckling. The Duckling was Swan. Why would a duck go to live with the swans? Duck stayed.

He was very lovely. He was very graceful. He was very sweet.

But after that, there was no happy ending. He was always, only, ever, a tragedy.

His questions were gone, but his words were the same

And the only thing he ever had to say again...wasn't anything to say at all:

Thank God I turned out beautiful.