(no subject)

[reallyaduck]

Duck places one foot slowly after another, dragging her toes, as she slumps her way into the bar.

Pique won't talk to her; Fakir is expelled; Mytho is -- Mytho is she doesn't even know what, and she doesn't have any idea what's going on.

Sitting at a table in Milliways might not actually help with any of that, but it's better than listening to Lilie go on and on about how she and Pique are going to have a battle --

-- not that she's annoyed with Lilie! She's happy Lilie is having fun! Lilie is her only friend right now who isn't sad or upset, and that counts for something, right?

(Okay maybe she's a little tiny bit annoyed with Lilie. But she doesn't know what to do with that feeling, so Milliways it is!)

Comments

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir is at the bar when he sees Duck come in.

A few minutes later, he sits down across from Duck, silently presenting her with a plate of two of Rae's cranberry-walnut muffins.

(Fakir thought about bringing bread, but, well, she's not a duck now, is she?)

[reallyaduck]

(She wouldn't have objected.)

Duck is scowling down at the table as if it holds the answer to all her problems; she doesn't notice Fakir's approach until the muffins slide into her field of vision.

. . . at which point she jumps halfway out of her seat. "Fakir!"

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir doesn't smile. It's been ... well, it's really been too awful of a day, or week, for that. But something in his posture eases. "Hello, Duck," he says.

[reallyaduck]

"It's awful!" Duck declares without preliminaries, leaning over the table on her elbows.

"Fakir, we gotta tell Mr. Cat that it's all a mistake so you can go back to school!"

(Here, at last, is a chance to maybe do something, anyway!)

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir raises his hand in the ballet mime for stop.

"No."

[knightoftheswan]

Duck really should watch where she's going while she's slumping. At this rate, she's likely to run into the Knight's table.

Whether that's intentional or not is up to Duck, all things considered.

[reallyaduck]

Was there ever a time when a narrative opportunity was presented to Duck to run into something, and she missed it?

Which is to say: "OW!"

[knightoftheswan]

It's even worse: the Knight is sharpening his arrows tonight. He manages to catch the ones jostled by the act before they do any harm.

There's a quiet mutter of, "Foolish girl..." before he asks, "Are you all right?"

[reallyaduck]

"Uh, yeah . . ."

Duck hangs her head, sheepish. (If it's not one person calling her foolish, it's another.) "Sorry about -"

Then she looks up, and her words are arrested as she stares.

[knightoftheswan]

He lifts his head from his replaced arrows and twitches just slightly as he meets her eyes.

"Hn. What is it?"

It's a little softer than he might have been before, though he frowns slightly when he mentally makes his guess.

[daringyoungman]

Well, she doesn't look happy.

Dick contemplates her from the rafters for a little while.

Then he drops (literally:- rafters) into a chair opposite her and offers her half of his sandwich.

[reallyaduck]

The first alert that Duck gets that someone has joined her is the way the table shakes, as happens when a weight drops from the ceiling.

"Qua-!"

She claps her hands over her mouth before the telltale quack can emerge, staring at Dick with large blue eyes over the top of her fingers.

[daringyoungman]

If girls are going to squawk at him when he offers them food, Dick thinks, he really ought to change his game.

He looks away, sulkily and brings the sandwich up again.

"You looked hungry."

Hungry is Dick's new code for 'sad.' He's had enough of people telling him he looks sad.

[reallyaduck]

"Oh!"

Duck lowers her hands, embarrassed to have been rude.

"Uh, thanks . . . sorry, you just startled me is all!

. . . but it looks really good!" she adds, hastily, and accepts the sandwich.

(. . . it really does look tasty.)

[daringyoungman]

Dick shrugs. And shifts in his chair, bringing his knee up in front of him and wrapping his now empty hand around it. With the other, he puts the other half sandwich on the table, for later.

Generally he's acting like giving her a sandwich was simultaneously the hardest thing to do ever and also no big deal in the slightest.

"It's from Bar," he says. "I didn't make it or anything."

[lyricaltokarev]

It's almost possible to feel the waves of general upset-ness radiating off this particular young woman.

(It's also possible to feel that the pendant around her neck contains a not-insignificant amount of magic, and Punie is no stranger to magical pendants.)

As a result, she has a single stem of white lilac in her hand when she approaches Duck. Her usual cheerful smile is a bit softer, and kinder, as she holds out the flower and says, "I hope you don't mind, but...you seemed like you could use something nice today."

[reallyaduck]

Duck's eyes widen, as she accepts the flower.

Some of the clouds clear from her face. "Oh, wow -- it's beautiful!" she exclaims, and looks up. "Today is definitely the kind of day when nice things really help . . . but, but how did you know?"

(Duck: SKILLED AT HIDING HER EMOTIONS BEHIND A MASK OF CALM.)

[lyricaltokarev]

"It's from the lilacs outside," Punie says. Talking about the flowers brings an extra shine to her smile. "They're just in bloom now, and I was putting some in vases. It's good to bring a little cheer in from outside."

She glances at the flower, then looks back at Duck. "And you looked a little sad to me, so I thought I'd bring a little cheer to you, if I could."

[reallyaduck]

Duck breaks into an answering smile.

"That's a really nice thing to do!"

It's always good to be reminded -- even when things are strange or even sad -- that there are people who'll do nice things just because they're nice.

"Do you take care of the flowers? I wish I could do that! I don't know anything about making stuff grow or anything!"

[lyricaltokarev]

Some people are indeed genuinely nice. And when Punie wants to be nice, she always means it.

"I'd be happy to show you the greenhouse here, if you like," she replies. "A nice boy showed it to me a while ago, and anyone can go in -- you don't need a special key or permission or anything, as long as you help to keep things nice and tidy. I'm not in charge of the flowers here or anything important like that, but I do like to know what's blooming or about to be in bloom at any time of year."

Then, almost as an afterthought, she drops a small but perfect curtsy. "My name's Punie, by the way."

[herr_bookman]

Ah, here she is, Autor thinks, smirking, right on schedule.

After his marginally successful conversation with Fakir, the music student staked out a spot on the bar to see if the redheaded tag-a-long would make an appearance shortly afterwards.

Lucky for him, she did--which he notes in his journal before coding it away in his sylladex. Even more lucky, he doesn't think the despondent waddler doesn't has noticed him yet. Perfect. Autor stands up from his barstool and gets her attention in the most gentle, subtle way he can.

Which is to say he casually drops a foot into her path.

[reallyaduck]

Wa-wa-wa-wa-WHOA!

Predictably, Duck goes flying, knocking over at least three chairs in the process; by the time she's flailed to a halt, she's a good five feet beyond Autor.

She whirls around. "Sorry so sorry --!!"

[herr_bookman]

It is some sort of a cosmic joke, Autor thinks, alarmed, that this git is part of the ballet division. Never have I seen someone flap their arms in such an ungainly fashion.

"Are you all right?" he asks, with genuine concern that surprises even him. He didn't expect her to take out half the bar.

She'd be a veritable weapon if I stuffed her into a cannon, he thinks some more, fighting a smile despite himself.

[reallyaduck]

"-- oh!"

Duck smiles as she recognizes him, though it's a little more troubled, and less easy, than it was the last time he saw her.

"Uh, yeah -- I'm okay! Sorry, I really didn't see you there!"

She scrambles back in his direction, and hovers awkwardly for a moment by the barstool next to him.

"Um, so . . . how are you?"

He'd lied to her last time, and that was weird, but -- should she ask him about it? Maybe there was a good reason . . .

[herr_bookman]

Autor notes the distressed cast to her smile, and returns it with a gently disarming one of his own. "I'm... well," he says, placing a hand on the bar to order a cup of tea for himself, and something... not tea for her. She may be Fakir's tag-a-long, but she's still unrelated.

"Thank you for asking," he says, finding it odd that she did. "Duck, right? How have you been? Aside from the whole running into chairs thing. That you just did."

This conversation, he reflects, is significantly more awkward than he intended it to be.