Gift

In the years after Goldkrone's story finally finished, it had become a regular scene for passerbys to come across a man writing at the lake's dock. It was completely unintentional, but Fakir gained a small infamous popularity of his own, just by doing what he wanted to do.

It was something Ahiru had taken notice of, as well. In fact, most peaceful days never went by without someone coming to visit. The duck rather liked the guests—to see people living happily without being controlled by Drosselmeyer's story was a blessing. But sometimes it was easy to tell when they were bothering Fakir. People asked questions a lot—what he was writing about, what was special about the lake, did he ever plan on taking up ballet again—and eventually he would simply recede into a cool silence, his quill scratching across the paper while ignoring anything else the guest had to say.

There were a lot of women, too. A lot of them.

And strangely enough, they were the ones Fakir seemed to be annoyed with the most. They never came in groups; he was always approached by them in singles. Ahiru couldn't overhear their conversations well, but they were always short and ended with the woman walking away, her face more downcast than when she first approached him. Ahiru wondered if Fakir was purposefully being mean to them, which made her a little put out with him sometimes. He was a human, so he should spend more time with humans!

Not that Ahiru could say the same for herself, in all honesty. She did make friends with the flock of waterfowl that made their home at the lake some months past, but the day always ended with her bobbing along at the dock, quacking contentedly. She just felt inexplicably happier that way.

One day, Fakir showed up at the lake with a silver ring on his finger.

Ahiru sat on the armrest of the chair, blinking at it, before glancing up to him. She never thought Fakir would be the type of person to wear jewelry.

But when he noticed her questioning look, he gave a shrug. He went on to explain that he just got tired of being asked to go out with women, so he made it at the smith to throw them off from now on.

Ahiru wasn't ignorant of the ring's implication. To point to that specific finger was the mime for marriage, after all.

And it worked, amazingly enough. There was a significant difference in the number of single women who visited him, instead replaced by people purely interested in his writing. When someone glanced at the ring on his finger, they assumed he was taken.

But he wasn't. Not in actuality.

That didn't stop the rumors from flying about, though Ahiru never caught on to them.

In fact, she almost wondered if there was an equivalent to her as a duck. Once she grew in her white feathers and spring arrived, the atmosphere around the lake changed. Her fellow waterfowl settled and started their own families, small lines of ducklings following after them.

Ahiru… wasn't ready for that yet.

But upon the frightening day she had to fight off a drake in the middle of the lake, she knew that she wanted something that would also deter other ducks from approaching her. She didn't want ducklings yet or to stay with a drake. Ahiru felt perfectly content with just staying with Fakir. And he had his own way of saying he wasn't available, right? Couldn't Ahiru have something like that, as well?

That question was answered a few days later when he showed up to the lake, something hidden in his fist. He, too, had witnessed Ahiru's problem and could decipher her concerns whenever she glanced at his own ring.

She waddled up to him and Fakir held out his hand, revealing a matching silver ring. He went on to explain that she could use it as she wished—but he wouldn't give her something like a collar. That made her below him, when she was every bit his equal. So he made the ring in the smith, just like he did his own. They were a matching pair, although he did not quite use those words, the light tinge of red dotting across his cheeks preventing him from pointing it out.

If ducks could smile, she would have given him the brightest beam. But he could see it in her eyes.

She had her ring looped through a small necklace and wore it around her neck, in the place her pendant used to be. And from then on, she was never approached by an unwelcome bystander, just as the same went for Fakir. Their rings signified that they belonged to someone already.

And this is the story of how Fakir got married to a duck.