A/N: All chapters are now split up into their constituent parts.

Quiverwing Duck: Part 3

Part Three

Quiver looked around. Now he was on Acorn Avenue, where along it did he need to be? His daughter hadn't specified that. Megavolt had understood, but then again, who really knew with so many connections gone awry?

Quiver walked slower, looking and looking. A restaurant cast out light onto the street. He looked in the wide windows. "Gosalyn?" She was sitting at a table, not in danger, finishing off a meal with a young male duck that Quiver suspected he'd never met. Quiver felt his cheeks grow warm with his mistake.

"Wait a minute." His mind refocused again. "She's still what, only fourteen? What's she doing dating boys at this age?"

Quiver waited in the shadows, highly suspicious as Quiverwing and the unknown suitor stepped through the doorway.

"... Well, there's a ballet concert on at the Ritz." The boy said as he closed the door behind them.
"I thought this was a date, not a torture session!"
The boy snatched her up in a whirl, as if dancing. He held her in his arms, almost parallel to the ground. "Who says it can't be both?"

"I do." Quiver snarled.

The boy pulled Quiverwing back up to a stand. "Who ..."
"Ah! Carl, this is Quiverwing Duck."
"What?"
"He's my dad from a different universe."
"Oh." Carl's face cleared. He stuck out his hand for Quiver. "I'm Carl Eider."

But before Quiver even had a chance to consider whether this was a good thing or not, a street telephone rung nearby.
"Oh, dear."
"What's wrong, Q?" Carl asked.
"What's not wrong? When mum uses psychic channelling to locate you, it's usually not a good thing." She ran to answer the ringing.

Carl frowned in thought.

'Mum?' Fascinated, Quiver took this opportunity to vector in closer to Quiverwing's conversation. '... Mum ...'
"Well, yeah, but he's not, I mean, we've got A Darkwing Duck. Well, okay. We'll be there ASAP." Quiverwing hung up. She turned, "She says she's not fussy." She grabbed Quiver, "Carl, I need your help to get us home, please?"

In a moment of complete disorientation, Quiver found himself standing in the backyard of his home. He put his hand to his head, fighting dizziness.

There were sounds of metal banging in the house.

"In our ... back ... yard, Carl?" Quiverwing looked up for a moment to the bedroom windows. "I'll remember that." Quiver looked over at Carl, who had a deep blush on his face. Quiver had already suspected as much back at the restaurant.

"Are you coming, guys?" She pulled out her bow and an arrow and Quiver did the same. Quiverwing twisted the knob of the unlocked door, and they filed into the house.

Morgana was in the lounge room, fighting off a giant mound of blue goo and tentacles with a frying pan.

"It's got an anti-hex spell on it!" She shouted at them as it snarled and slobbered grotesquely, smelling like it'd come from the sewers. "Get away you ... brute!"

Carl dodged past Quiverwing and began wrestling with the monster. The fight took about five seconds, as the slimy thing caught him and flung him back against the stair banister. The creature turned from Morgana to Carl, and roared at him, approaching. Quiver raised his bow and fired the gas arrow. This caused Morgana and Carl to cough, but it worked enough to get the thing's attention away from the brash youth. It roared at Quiver and started for him now.

Quiver narrowly dodged a swipe from one its tentacles, then help came.
"Hey, you!" The Quiverwing Quack shouted, standing in the kitchen doorway. "You want some foo-die-woo-die? Over here, big boy." The thing turned its head to Quiverwing. "Good food. Lots of food." The creature came for her, and she stood her ground.
Quiver's nerves twitched. Not again. "Quiverwing, get out of the way!" He rushed forwards, but he was too late and he was behind it as the creature lunged for Quiverwing.

Quiverwing jumped up, catching the frame of the door and getting out of the way just in time. The creature crashed into the kitchen, and the teenager dropped down, back-flipped and flicked the dishwasher door shut with her foot.

Quiver stared at her. "That was amazing! How'd you learn gymnastics like that? I'm hopeless at teaching that sort of stuff."

"It was a summer school you sent me to one year." Quiverwing pressed the buttons, and the machine began chugging away. There was a last monstrous gurgle, and a few moments later there was nothing but the liquid sound and motorized hum of the washer. She turned the machine off, opened the door and dug around in the machine. After a moment, she pulled out a blue ball that fit easily in her fist. Quiverwing tossed it at Morgana who caught it.

"Thank you, sweetheart." Morgana sighed in relief.
"Thank dad for letting us get a dishwasher." Quiverwing grinned.
Morgana picked up a small parcel on the sideboard and put the blue ball into it. Meanwhile, Quiver and Carl righted the table that Quiverwing had overturned.
"Another gift-o-gram from Transylvania?" Carl asked.
"It's very childish." Morgana sighed. "I'm appalled by this behaviour."
"Well, why don't you send one back?" Carl asked behind them in the doorway. "Fight a rattle with a rattle?" Quiverwing suppressed a giggle.

"Hey, how'd you know the dishwasher would work, Q? I mean, you only just saw the thing."
"A little something my dad taught me a long time ago, Carl." Quiverwing said proudly, then gave Quiver another fierce hug. "The only solution to a dirty, mucky, smelly thing like that is a good cleaning."

Then her face grew stern. "Oi, you ..." The teenage crime-fighter pushed past them. Carl stepped out of her way just in time.

"Is the monster gone, Q?" A tiny thin voice piped from the other room.
Morgana moved through the doorway after Quiverwing. "Yes, sweetie."
Quiver stepped into the lounge room, considering the duckling in Quiverwing's arms. 'My biological daughter? Not quite, it's a different universe. But it is possible ...' He snatched a hopeful look at Morgana.

The child shrieked. "Monster!" She pointed at Quiver, and then squirmed in Quiverwing's arms, attempting to hide.
Quiverwing wrestled with the child for a moment. "No, he's ... not-the-monster, sweetie." Quiverwing cooed at the toddler. The child blinked with tears in her eyes at Quiver.
"I want my daddy."
"Well, now I feel cheap." Quiver couldn't believe his ears. 'I'm an impostor in my own house. What am I doing here?'

Quiverwing approached him and forced the toddler into his arms.
"This one's just as good." Quiverwing was firm with her words.
"What's his name?" The duckling asked.
"Quiverwing Duck."
"No, the monster." Quiverwing looked at Carl, then back at Morgana.

"Darkwarrior Duck." Quiverwing said, swallowing hard. "I didn't realise you could pick that up, Ray."

"We should put you to bed now, darling." Morgana moved towards Quiver, but the child gripped him all the tighter.
"Oh, uh," Morgana turned her eyes from the duckling up to Quiver, "Dark, could you do that, please?"
'Dark.' His brain turned to instant mush. "Sure." It was only at this moment that he realised how tightly he was holding onto the promise in his arms; almost as fierce as she was clinging on to him.

"I'd better return this parcel to its sender." Morgana excused herself and closed the front door after her as Quiver went up the stairs.

Quiver tucked Raya into bed.

"Can you tell me a story?"
"Oh, well, sure." Quiver answered in surprise and searched his brain. "There was once a brave knight who lived in a tower." He smoothed the blankets over her. "Every night she went out. Even when it rained or snowed, out she still went."
"What did she do when she went out?"
"Well, she fought dragons and ..."
"Oh no!" Raya cried out, "I like dragons!"
"Uh, she fought the bad dragons, and made friends with the good ones."
"Oh, that's better." Raya sighed in relief and settled back into the bed. "I was worried."
"You're too little to worry, sweetie." He kissed her forehead. "And sometimes, her dragon friends helped her on her adventures."
"What sort of adventures?"
"She saves people from the bad dragons."
"She must live in the Dreaming. There are not many dragons around nowadays." Raya yawned and snuggled into her pillow. "Maybe one day she'll move to the future and find some bad ducks to fight instead."
"Yeah, I'll remember to tell her that." He cooed at the duckling. "Sleep well, sweetie."

Quiver was on cloud nine as he stepped out softly into the hallway, gently closing the door behind him. 'All things possible.' He felt his heart singing.

A/N: 'The Dreaming' or 'The Dreamtime' (Google/Wiki it and learn something valuable) this is me continuing on my quest to merge different folklores to create a new social history text. There are no dragons in The Dreamtime ... or are there?