"You can't be serious!" Webby practically screamed as she paced in front of a door. "This is Magica DeSpell we're talking about. You can't, can't just… arg!"
"Calm down, lass," he said calmly. The look he got in return was absolutely livid.
"I'm gonna have to agree with Webby on this," stated Dewey.
He sighed, "I know how ye feel, but my gut is telling there is more to it."
"You thinking she might have been possessed before?" Huey added.
"I don't know lad, I don't know. Beakley you saw her just now, your opinion?" Something passed between them.
"I reserve the right to make a judgement," answered Beakley, stoic as ever.
"She could be playing us," Louie voiced his objection.
"I hope your right," he said under his breath.
Steeling himself he entered the room. And, nearly gasped at what he saw. He stared transfixed as Magica caressed the cheek of a monochromed bust of Lena. Her eyes still vacant, a tender smile gracing her bill.
"My little shadow, I'm so sorry," her voice was quiet and full of remorse.
He cleared his throat. As she turned to face him, the smile fell and the eyes remained vacant.
"Why did ye call her your shadow?" There was curiosity in his tone, and more than a bit of anger.
"It is an old custom in my family," she stated and as she did the ghost of a smile returned, and her eyes seemed to have a spark of live to them. He noticed they weren't gold, they were, he gulped, they were Lena's. "Mothers and fathers would call their children shadows." The bust of Lena transformed into a smiling older women reaching forward. "And, like a summer tree protect them from the harsh sun until they were ready to cast their own shadows." As she continued the image once more became Lena. "I guess I've lost all my leaves." The smile faded once more.
Swallowing a lump in his throat, he pointed at the shadow construct and asked, "what is that?"
She turned once more to face Lena, "it's a simple technique to help with memory. In the more advance stages it can project those memories."
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"If you answer who Lena was to you," Magica stated.
"Lass, I'm not going to sugarcoat it, and being perfectly blunt. She was a spy you sent to get close to me family and steal my number one dime." He paused as he let out a weary sigh. "In the end she was family."
"More than you know," muttered Magica. Turning fully toward him, Lena disappeared once more but the shadow remained. "How much do you know of the feud between clan McDuck and line DeSpell?" she asked.
"Not much. I didn't even know there was a feud until Magica tried to kill me for the first time." He coughed awkwardly.
She bowed her head in shame. "It started when Shadow, the founder of line DeSpell, used a lunar eclipse to conquer the shadow realm and become king of the shadows." As she spoke the shadow projection morphed into a puppet show or storybook representation of the story.
"Must be how they tell it to their children," he mused sadly.
"As such, he was the first mortal member of Titania's court," she continued.
He immediately raised his cane in a guarded position. "You're fae?" he accused.
A small smile graced her face. "Technically." She twiddled her thumbs. "All it really means is my family's magic is slightly more powerful and the average lifespan is around 200 years."
She sighed, "the problem started with the war between Merlin and queen Mab." While she talked the shadow puppets changed from a giant of a man fighting formless shadow monsters in the light of a full moon, to two armies. One had wings with a few fluttering about, obviously the far and the other presumably the army of mortals. At the head of each group was figure standing larger than the rest. The one for the far had a crown and claws while the mortals' leader held a staff and was cloaked in feathers.
"As king of the realm of shadows, Shadow was one of the few to have total independence in the court of The Fae. Thus he could choose to fight or not." The figure from earlier appear holding a scale under both armies. "How can one choose a side in a war, when one fights for freedom," the scales tipped in favor of the mortals. "And, the other fights for the right to exist?" The scales tipped in favor of the fae.
"After the death of Arthur, the remnants of the Knights of the Round reformed under a new banner, the Knights Templar." This time the shadow depicted a circle on a square negative, the top and bottom halves exchanged places. The process repeated for the horizontal and when it was done, hanging there was the Templar cross. "If not for Flick and his sacrifices they might have hunted down all fae. Instead they showed animosity towards the fae and especially the line of DeSpell as they saw Shadow's refusal to fight as a betrayal."
"But, then shouldn't the feud be between the DeSpells and the Templars, not the McDucks?" He asked confused.
"That is where the prophecy comes in," she stated. The shadow morphed into a lone figure standing next to a tree on a hill. "One of clan McDuck, set in motion with a single pluck, the end of line DeSpell, 'til the final toll of the bell." The hill pulled back to a valley full of graves. He swallowed hard.
"Thus the feud." She paused. "Which is why we've hidden away for centuries. To avoid the wrath of clan McDuck and the possibility of self-fulfilling prophecy."
"The day it all went to hell. The day I returned home, to the ancestral home of DeSpell. Casa de Nil, in the land of Twilight. The I was to lay Lena's egg." This time the shadow expanded encompassing the whole room. He was in a field surrounded by a low stone wall and a little ways away stood a mansion on a small hill.
"Mine's bigger," he couldn't help but think.
A. n. - The war between Merlin and Queen Mab, is a reference to the 1997 Mini-series "Merlin", which I'd recommend. The whole Knights Templar are Knights of the Round reformed came from a sub-plot where the reason Lancelot was in Arthur's court was to protect Guinevere while the Knights and their king sought the holy grail. Throw in the Templars being after the grail from "The Davinci Code."
So I'm curious if the memory technique works here, because it is a bit important in the second part of the series.
This chapter and the next were originally suppose to be one.