Darkwing was nearly blinded by the white: ice slapped his face harder than a stone, chills froze the blood in his thin veins, every road seemed long and endless, merging and smothering into one another. He couldn't even remember how he had gotten away, nor how long he had been fleeing for. Stores with doors frozen shut, signs that informed where he went lied, the pain he felt proved itself to be more than a phase. There were even moments where he had forgotten who he had been, and why he was even out trudging in the storm. Darkwing hadn't known where he was going, he just knew the piercing fear of scampering away from danger.
Danger. That word sounded familiar, but brought more gusts of frozen breezes than the ones he felt outside. Danger was supposed to be the very thing he spat in the eye, danger was supposed to be the idea he choked in his daydreams, danger was holding him by the neck, as he dangled over a landscape of agony and unfailing torture. Danger loved him. Danger loathed him.
Darkwing yelped, feeling his face crashing down onto the slick concrete: his vision pulsed, a drumming with no rhyme or reason haunted his thoughts. He could no longer feel his fingers, as they shriveled up into plump, purple, clumps. It would be so much easier just to die. If the duck had just laid there, the snow could bury him, smother him in its love. All it took was one slip away from death, and he wouldn't have to endure any longer. No.
Darkwing tore himself away from the snow's grasp, stumbling for a steady balance; the wind was becoming savage, as if needles had been gouging into the duck's eyes. He yanked his body forward with each step. He gave a weary glance around, hoping that his surroundings crashed back his memories; he found a house.
It wasn't just one house, it had been a whole neighborhood. But one house in particular was what glued him into its view. He couldn't remember why it had interested him so, only that he had a driving desire to reach it. Darkwing practically scrambled for it, desperation gripping him like a sorrowful animal.
He had been practically jittering with unfamiliar stimuli by the time he reached the steps to the porch. He grabbed one of them with his bare hands, uncaring for the snow that covered it. He clawed at it helplessly, as it could slip a memory he couldn't grasp. Darkwing's head felt too fogged for any reasonable thought, foggier than the clouds that blocked out the sun. Nor did it matter, he began pulling himself up the steps. It had been a miracle he hadn't fallen down again.
The duck collapsed against the door frame, who in return croaked under the force. His mind began to spin, as the buzzing and drumming began to crescendo to his misery. By the time he opened his eyes again, he caught a bleak view of the roof foundationed upon the porch. At least the snow was less of an issue.
Darkwing whimpered, despite not wanting to; if any villain saw him like this, he would never be looked at again without mockery. He cradled his hands, glazed over in pure ice, as his vision began to deteriorate once more. He heard the echo of a squeaking door, but had already been lost to his shadows by the time the thought occurred to him.
Negaduck. He could remember it all now. It had been a trap, always a stupid scheme Darkwing fell for far too many times. The vigilante had scuttled to a toy factory at the crack of midnight, expecting a maniac cackle from a Quackerjack. Instead, he found Negaduck swinging a blow to his head. "Idiot." Darkwing could remember that spiteful grin perfectly, as his attacker's eyes seemed to glisten blood. But as suddenly as his face appeared, Negaduck's expression contorted grossly. "Where's the bucket-head pilot. Isn't he usually a tagalong?" Darkwing caught a snarl. "Don't matter anyhow. I'm about to have some fun." Everything else was still a blur to him, but that didn't stop his injuries from burning.
But where had Launchpad been? Negaduck had at least been right on that note. Darkwing felt a thought start to surface, perhaps even a beginning of another memory, but the buzzing and bashing in his head worsened. The lifeless idea had burrowed away into the depths of him, before he had the guts to grab it. Darkwing clutched his head, still unwilling to open his eyes. The pain would just not go away, would it? The duck's heart dropped; he couldn't feel for his mask.
He forked open his eyes, a dull lamp light blinding his vision. He didn't care for it, instead he felt for his surroundings. He couldn't feel his thin cape either, or his weaponry belt, or….well, anything. The duck could only uselessly grab at his own feathers and his thin, sweat-drenched, undershirt.
He attempted to blink back his vision, yet the low light still sizzled his eyes as deeply as a blaring bulb. Panic corrupted him, forcing himself to sit up. Darkwing cried out, the side of his torso and limbs frying, he questioned whether or not the skin was screaming off his thin frame. Every breath he took was another stab that bruised him, and by moving his body at all was another whole world of pain. The duck felt the moisture rise within his eyes, unwilling to be shielded any longer from the outside world. He ripped away from the emotion, slicing into the single thread that connected him to it. Darkwing Duck was a hero, not a low commoner. He was supposed to handle this, he had been through worse hadn't he?
Just as Darkwing landed his back against…whatever he was laying upon, a click sounded. A bang, against one of the walls. The door groaned. Darkwing's heart lodged itself between his lungs. He wasn't alone. The intention was for him to yell a threat at the intruder, in surreal hopes that he could scare them away. But the only thing Darkwing could manage was a gurgled murmur, his tongue too thick for words. The pain, the agony, it had been too much. All these years, and this was the worst pain he had?
Despite his struggle in perceiving the things around him, the duck caught a glimpse of something above him; a shadow loomed over him. No, it wasn't a shadow. A silhouette, who's colors meshed with the rest of the soft lit room. The only color he could clearly see was a warm, crisp, rubied, red. The moment Darkwing caught sight of it, he was leashed and hooked to it. For the moment, he had forgotten the potential danger he was in; the red moved in waves, shuttering and flickering under the lonely light. It threatened to embrace him in its glory. It consoled his lack of reason, the pain worsening with each flick of an eye. Red, such a horrific and magnificent color.
Darkwing, no. Drake settled into darkness once more.
No matter what anyone argued, if it hadn't been for Archie, Darkwing Duck would have frozen to death. Right there, limpless and cold on Morgana's very doorstep. The love of her life would have made a grave at the ghoul's very home. She was trembling worse than the shutters when she brought Darkwing inside, barely managing the strength to keep hold of him. So many questions in such little time: what had happened, who had done this, and why had Darkwing chosen to come here out of all places? It wasn't that Morgana wasn't glad he had found sanctuary with her, but he had a whole lair on the Audubon bridge. If not that, at least his own house, or even the Thunderquack. Yet, there he was, resting against her in a cold slumber. She dearly hoped it was slumber.
At first she hadn't believed what her familiar had told her, likely due to her mind still being fuzzy and drenched in sleep. Despite the weather, it was still completely dead daylight out. Archie had persisted in rousing her, even leaving bite marks on her hand when she refused to acknowledge him. Finally, Morgana had menaced him a stare, quickly morphing into dread after the spider had grunted and squealed the thing he wished to say: Darkwing was out there, nearly dead in the cold.
Eek and Squeak had fluttered lazily from their crammy cubicles, gerbiling hysterically the moment they found what Morgana was holding beside the front door. She kept them out of her hearing range, more worry was the last thing she needed at that moment. The ghoul quickly realized she didn't have any sort of guest bed ready, as she had decided to take the time to rearrange some of the furniture she owned. She procrastinated on it, but it still needed to get done in the near future. Nor was she about to let Darkwing on a stiff couch or chair, not in his state. The last and only room that came to mind was Morgana's own bedroom.
She spared no time in double thinking the idea, quickly rummaging open the door. The door flew with a single shouldering, ringing as it slammed against the wall; she really needed to put something behind the darn thing. Mustering up a free hand, the witch clicked her fingers with a single snap. A small, medieval fashioned lamp of stone popped a dim light. With a caressing touch, she laid Darkwing against the mattress. Red stains covered parts of her hands as she backed away, she swelled with a lavishing rage.
"There has to be something." Morgana scavenged through the few shelves she had in the bedroom, punting away the books that wouldn't salvage what was left on that bed. She caught sounds of flapping emerging from behind, yet it only added a bucket of oil to her fire. "Not now." The bats merely persisted. "Now now. I-" Once their mistress had finally made the wise choice of facing them, the nocturnal creatures practically threw the back they had been carrying. Morgana fumbled to catch it, instantly leafing through the thin pages, leaving red smudges on every single one. The witch's gaze spiked mid page turn, returning to the bed Darkwing was still sprawled upon. The bats grunted, but forgave her anyway.
There were many wounds that needed attending, but Morgana decided to tackle the one that had left residue traces on her hands: Darkwing's side had inked red through his clothing. As far as anyone could tell, the winter hadn't slowed down the injury either. The ghoul grunted, the two layers had been a rock in a stream; she began to strip him of his purple outer coat. After that had been done, she merely lifted the undershirt of the area she needed to attend to. The cut hadn't been that large, but it was deep enough to still be oozing alarming amounts of fluid. Morgana observed it with a critical eye, trying to reminisce back to her studies of healing such injuries. "Archie, what does it say?" The spider hopped onto the book left on the mattress, grumbling out odd phrases; Morgana spiked a glare at her familiar. "What?" Archie returned the annoyance, pushing the book towards her as if to prove a point. Morgana stared at him, then skimmed through a paragraph of the page. She sighed, stiffly.
She dug her fingers into the cut, Darkwing whimpering in alarm. He was still unconscious, but he felt every sensation like the prick on a dog's nose. The muscles across his collarbone and neck wrung tight, as each breath became more unstructured. Morgana stared at his expression, her very soul being crushed under its weight. "I'm sorry, Darling." The words were barely heard, but they had still been there, lingering in distant echoes and whispers.
She conducted the spell she striven to cast, one mistake could be the final line for him. For her. She did her best to mimic the hand gestures the book depicted, sounding out the old language in her head before applying it audibly to her performance. The last time Morgana had this much pressure under doing a spell was back in college, where a wrong flick of a finger or tongue would abolish her chances at graduating that year. This. This was much worse.
Morgana felt something sliver across her fingers, as the constant flow of red stains began to slow to a steady halt; it was working. The ghoul retracted her fingers with clumsy ease, as she let the rest of the magic conduct its work. The clotting process sped up, if not slightly improved, seaming in loose ends of the skin. Within about a minute or two, the cut had vanished. Morgana couldn't help it, shuttering a small life as despair forked her face into a smile; she grasped her trembling hands, still stained in shades of red and pink. It worked. It really did work.
Author's Note:
Thank you for taking the time to read the first chapter of this story! All criticism is greatly appreciated!
I do not own any Darkwing Duck properties, and neither do I make money off of this story. All reserved rights go to Disney and its original creators.
