Consequences
It had been several weeks since visiting the Story for Mytho and Rue's wedding and life had settled back into the same rhythm as before. Fakir and Duckie still practiced together every morning before class, Duckie still hung out with her friends, Fakir still spent time in the library with Autor, and the two still bickered over pointless minutiae. But there was something about those weeks that Duckie couldn't put to words, they just… sparkled. Perhaps it was the fact that she and Fakir would hold hands as they walked together, or that she had started noticing the way he looked at her, or that they were starting to make more plans to spend time together. Though as Duckie reflected on it she realized it was probably the kisses they shared, mostly when no one was around because Fakir didn't like being gawked at. Duckie blushed and grinned like a loon as she walked to the library, happily alone in her own thoughts.
Or so she thought, "Well well, if it isn't little Duckie. I was hoping to see you today."
Duckie jumped and whipped her head towards the girl who had addressed her, nearly giving herself whiplash. "Oh uhm… hello," She replied happily, smiling at the girl she recognized from class, though she couldn't remember her name. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Yes, I was wondering if you could tell me what you did to capture Fakir?"
"Huh? Capture? I don't understand what you mean." Duckie looked at the other girl in confusion.
"I mean that for the longest time you declare that you have no interest in him at all and then all of a sudden you two become best of friends and now you're dating. What has a clutz like you who can barely do the basics done to deserve someone as handsome and cool as Fakir? I've loved him ever since I came to this school and you just sweep in snatch him from right under my nose!" Ducke stepped back as the other girl got louder and angrier with every word.
"I didn't do anything, I mean… I didn't snatch him at all!" The other girl glared at Duckie as she yelled back angrily though visibly frightened. Then the strange girl took a deep breath and tried to calm down, her next words were strangely quiet.
"Well, it's no matter what trick you pulled to get his attention, you'll stop seeing him immediately if you know what's good for you."
"What?" Duckie stared at the girl with wide eyes, not sure how to respond to her wild demand.
"That's right, you're going to step back and let someone more suited to him have a chance. And not only that… what's that?" The girl's eyes were drawn to Duckie's uniform where her hand was gripping Fakir's pendant tightly. "Let me see it." She grabbed Duckie's wrist tightly in one hand and pulled the gem out with her other, pulling the chain tight as she got a good look at the blood red jewel. "Was this a gift from the Wonderful Fakir? It doesn't suit you at all, I think I'll keep it for myself." Before Duckie could do more than gasp the audacious girl had given the pendant a sharp yank, breaking the delicate chain and pulling it away from Duckie altogether.
There was a brilliant flash of ruby light and the girl was left staring at a pile of clothes with something inside them pushing its way out. She gasp and stepped back, staring at the strange sight with wide eyes. Shortly a little yellow duck pushed its way out and looked up at her with large, angry, blue eyes. "Quack!"
"What? A duck? What's going on?" The duck glared at the girl before charging at her, going for the pendant still held in her hand. The girl jerked the pendant out of the duck's reach, batting away at her before running off. Duckie watched the girl leave, unsure what to do next. She looked back at her pile of clothes and then towards the library where she knew Fakir and Autor were currently doing some sort of research. She sighed dramatically and set about shoving her uniform under a conveniently close bush before spreading her wings taking to the skies, intent on reaching the library as quickly as possible. Just like old times.
Fakir and Autor were sitting in the back of the second floor, heads huddled close as they stood over an old tome and discussed its literary merits quietly. It was one of the regular activities of the school's unofficial literature club, and since Autor was one of the student librarians they pretty much had free reign with the library and all inside it. They had just gotten into a hushed argument about the meaning of the fairy king mentioning church bells when Fakir suddenly clutched his chest and nearly fell over, leaning heavily on the desk for support and knocking the heavy book over. "Fakir! What's wrong, are you hurt?" Autor hovered over his relation, unsure what to do.
Fakir ground his teeth as he hissed, though he started to relax his grip on his shirt. "Something's happened to Duckie."
"What? Are you sure?" Fakir nodded as he stood up, straightening out his uniform.
"Something happened to her pendant, at least. We need to find her." Autor simply picked up the book the two had been reading and placed it back on the desk before walking with Fakir to the library's front doors.
"Do you even know where she is right now?"
"No, but I know she's not in here." The two walked purposely out of the library, Fakir leading the way to the ballet building. Not three yards from the library door the two suddenly stopped as they heard loud quacking, they looked up to see a small yellow duck heading directly towards them. Fakir held out his arms and Duckie neatly slowed and landed gracefully in them.
"Duckie? What happened, why are you a duck?" Fakir looked down at her incredulously as Duckie quacked loudly while waving her wings about wildly. She seemed quite irate and neither boy could figure out what she was going on about. "Slow down, I can't understand what you're saying." Duckie glared at Fakir meaningfully and Autor coughed rather loudly. "Okay, so I can't really understand you normally either but I can usually figure it out." Fakir set Ducke down in the middle of the pathway they were standing on, a couple passing students looking at them oddly before moving on. Duckie started miming, trying to explain that a jealous girl had stolen her pendant. "Do you know who she is? Where she went?" Duckie shook her head sadly at Fakir's questions. "Alright then, we'll just have to start looking for her. Lead the way." Duckie nodded and started waddling in the same direction the boys had been heading in originally, Fakir and Autor followed along. Fakir quirked an eyebrow when he noticed his cousin coming along, Autor responded by simply smirking in an amused manner.
Duckie led them right to a bush off to the side of the ballet building, a little nook hidden from view by most people. She quickly ducked under the bush and started tugging on something, Fakir kneeled down and reached under the bush to help her pull whatever it was out. "A uniform?" Autor quirked an eyebrow at the unusual find.
"It must be Duckie's," Fakir replied while tying it up in a neat little bundle and tucked it under his arm. "Alright, which way did she go?" Duckie looked around for a moment, then pointed with her wing back to the front of the building before running as quickly as she could in that direction.
Several hours of wandering over the campus later and they still had no idea who the girl was, though Fakir and Autor had a vague description thanks to a game of 20 questions with Duckie. Fakir sighed heavily, "This is starting to look hopeless."
"Hey look, it's Fakir and that guy he hangs out with, maybe they know where Duckie is!" Fakir and Autor turned when they heard someone nearly shout in a high pitched squeal, behind them Duckie's friends were fast approaching. Fakir quickly tucked Duckie inside his jacket so they wouldn't notice her. "Fakir, have you seen Duckie?"
"We were supposed to have dinner at the new restaurant but we can't find her anywhere," Pique added. Fakir shook his head and the two looked rather disappointed. "That's too bad, if you see her-"
"We do know what she's doing though." Autor cut in before the girl could finish her sentence. Fakir and Pique both shot him dark looks, though for very different reasons. "One of your classmates stole the pendant Fakir gave her and we're trying to get it back right now."
"That's just terrible! Who stole Duckie's pendant?"
"Duckie couldn't remember her name, but she's got brown hair a bit longer than her shoulders and brown eyes. Do you know her?"
Pique and Lillié looked at each other quizzically before responding. "That describes several girls in our class, is there anything else you can tell us about her?" The two boys shook their heads sadly, "Well, that's alright. I suppose we'll help you guys find the thief and get Duckie's necklace back. See you later." The two girls waved as they ran off to interrogate their classmates. Fakir sighed in relief as they watched the girls' retreating backs before glaring at Autor.
"What? We need all the help we can get and they know more about their classmates than we do." Fakir just grunted as he pulled Duckie out from his jacket and continued their search. Though as Autor will point out after everything is said and done, "We may as well have not even bothered for all the good it did us."
Fakir and Autor were sitting on the fountain near the dorms, Duckie on the ground between them leaning against the stones, all of them exhausted and ready to just go to bed but still missing the all important pendant. It was rather disheartening. "Oh, here you guys are, how lucky." Pique and Lillié had just left the girl's dorm with a smooth, red jewel hanging from a thin gold chain in hand.
"Guess what we found?" Fakir gasped and quickly snatched the gem, inspecting the broken chain it was attached to.
"Who had it?" Fakir ground out, too relieved and angry to bother with a proper thank you.
"We're not telling you, she feels pretty guilty already. She wants to apologize to Duckie later."
"It's getting pretty late, we better head in. Tell Duckie we can do dinner tomorrow night instead." The two girls waved as they headed back into the dorm, though the boys could hear Lillié excitedly talking about a duel or failing out of school for falling asleep in class or something equally ridiculous as they headed inside.
"I still don't know what you see in those two." Duckie shrugged at Fakir's comment, like she wasn't sure herself. "Either way this chain is going to take a while to fix, it'd be quicker to just replace it until then. I'm going home to see if Charon has any. Thanks for all your help today, Autor."
"Don't mention it, it's rather nice to have a little adventure once in a while that doesn't include ravens or broken hearts." Autor waved as the two headed out of the dorm gates and down the road. He could faintly hear Fakir declare he was putting the gem on a thicker chain before the pair went out of sight.
Not completely satisfied with this but I don't know what I can do to make it better. A continuation of Beginning Again? in case you weren't sure. I suppose the full title could be Consequences of Pinning all Your Hopes and Dreams on a Delicate Piece of Jewelry or something like that but there isn't enough room for all that. And I don't think mystery classmate is as apologetic as Pique and Lillié made her out to be, perhaps the Ballerina Maffia bullied her into it?
I have a couple ideas for multi-chapter fics and want to work on finishing those. That means that these little one shots won't be getting any updates for a while. It's not like I was regular to begin with, but don't expect to see any for a long time. I do still plan on doing these, I still have a few ideas I want to explore, but I really really REALLY want to get these multi-chapter fics done too.