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duck

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Duck isn't sure how long it's been since the last time she was here - a few days, maybe? Funny that it doesn't really seem like anything at all's happened back home . . . was it yesterday that she asked Fakir if he wanted to team up with her? Or was it last month?

And isn't it maybe kinda weird that it's so hard to tell?

(Somewhere deep in the mechanism of the story, someone wiggles the gears back and forth for a while; when they stubbornly refuse to move, she sighs and goes back to handwaving frantically. Drosselmeyer really needs to oil those things better.)

Anyway, it's not like it really matters, Duck thinks. What matters is that Duck's been practicing hard all day and so she totally deserves the giant Duck's-head-sized sticky bun that she is currently about to bite into.

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He'd tried the door again when he came in from sword practice.

Nothing. Again.

Luke wanders down the aisles, looking for something - anything - to take his mind of the plan he has to put in motion the instant the door starts co-operating. Duck's sticky bun is as good as any other.

"Say, did you get that from the bar? Or is it something you brought from home?"

Duck squints at the sticky bun, and then over at the boy. "Uh, no, I got it from the bar! You can get pretty much anything there, you know, and it's all really good!"

She nods vehemently to back up her own statement, and then adds, with a smile, "If you want one I can get you one too - it's really good!"

This girl is already reminding him of that other one. Brittany. Although this one seems a lot more energetic. It'd probably be best if he keep his expectations low.

He smiles. "No, that's okay. I'll get my own."

At the bar, he puts one of his dwindling supply of drachma down and gets a thick, steaming bun in response. He carries it over to Duck's table.

"So," he asks after swallowing his first large bite, "when and where are you from, miss?"

"I'm from Gold Crown Town! Uh, I don't really know when . . ."

The problem with living in a fairy tale frozen in time is that dates are a little hard to come by. (But even if there was a proper date, odds are high that Duck wouldn't know it.)

"My name's Duck! You don't have to call me miss or anything . . . I mean I'm just a student in the beginner class!" And the boy is definitely older - a senpai for sure. "What about you?"

He'd pegged the girl as twelve or eleven; now he lowers it to ten. They've had younger kids come through the camp, and Luke was always good at talking to them. So when he smiles and takes another bit of his bun, the happiness is genuine.

"Gold Crown Town, huh? Never heard of that one. Do you know where it is? And I'm Luke, from New York, 2005. Nice to meet you, Duck."

"Not really," Duck confesses.

"I mean other than here I've never really been anywhere other than Gold Crown Town . . . so it's kinda hard to say what's near it. But it's nice to meet you, Luke-senpai!"

It's transparently true. Duck's always happy to meet new people, and new people get shuffled almost automatically into the category of 'new friends.'

"What's New York like?"

Senpai? That's a new one.

"Well, the part of the state I live in is farmland, more or less. Pretty weather, too, and not a lot of pollution." The dryads and the nymphs see to that. "The city is crowded and noisy, but I like going there when I get the chance."

And whenever he can slip out from under Mr. D's nose. It's his prime place for picking up contraband, and getting lost in the crowd helps him think sometimes.

"And you can just call me Luke," he adds. "I don't really know what sempai means, but the only title I really have in senior counselor."

Duck laughs. "That's really just what it means! I mean - senpai's what you call someone who's in an upper class, right?"

If you asked her why she was using Japanese honorifics, given that technically the language that they speak in Gold Crown Town is German, Duck wouldn't know how to answer - but then, she would be confused if you pointed out that she was speaking English now, too.

"But Luke's good, too!" Duck is never one to stand on formality if she can possibly avoid it. "It sounds nice where you are, anyway . . . what are you a counselor for?"

Luke's brain is hardwired to read Ancient Greek. Aside from basic literacy and fluency in English, speaking Spanish pretty well, and a smattering of curses and questions in other languages, that's the extent of his linguistic knowledge. So Duck's brand of weirdness sails right over his head.

He considers her question carefully. With most people he'd be worried about giving too much away, but Duck strikes him as likely to forget to mention that nice young demigod she met yesterday, so he might as well tell her some of the truth.

"It's called Camp Halfblood. Ever heard of it?"

He's curious to see if she's met anyone from his home, or if it exists in other worlds.

"Camp Halfblood?" Duck echoes, wide-eyed, and shakes her head. "Uh-uh, never! But," she adds quickly, in case he's offended, "I mean I told you there's lots and lots of stuff I don't know, so . . . I mean all I really know about even a little is Gold Crown Town and ballet, and I still don't even know much about those!"

This is the problem with growing up as a duck in a pond.

When he's not trying to get information out of scatterbrained girls, Luke can actually enjoy talking to them. So he just keeps smiling as Duck babbles on.

"Ballet? Is that all your school teaches?"

He stopped going to school after third grade. For all he knows, this could be standard education where Duck's from.

Duck shakes her head. "There's other divisions too - music and art and um drama I think . . . but they all take classes in different buildings so it's kinda hard to meet people like that. The art students use ballet students as models sometimes, like Miss Malen . . . and the music students come and play for us sometimes, which is really nice of them! It's gotta be boring for them practicing the same part over and over while we try and get it right."

"A big school, then. Cool. So did you pick dance on your own, or was it your parent's decision?"

It's nothing Luke would have chosen on his own. If he'd had more choice in his own life he would have gone to college and probably majored in something involving trade or travel, but his course is pretty definitely set for now.

"Oh, I don't have parents," Duck says, amiable but a little wary; people always seem to react to that like it's kind of weird. Which . . . maybe it is?

"I mean it's not a big deal or anything! I just knew that I wanted to dance so a - a friend helped me get into school at Gold Crown Town."

His first thought, before he can control it, when Duck mentions her own lack of parents is lucky her.

Quickly taking and swallowing another bite before any of this can show on his face, he asks "That was nice of him. Did you have to move there, or were you living there when your friend got you into school?"

"Well, kinda. I was living in the -"

- waaaaaaaaaait.

Duck swallows her words, almost visibly, and then babbles out, "I mean, by the pond! It was close but I wasn't going to school or anything, I just got to watch Mytho when he came out to practice and it was so pretty, I -"

She takes a gulp of air and slows down a little. "I just knew I wanted to dance with him like that . . ."

Well now, that's interesting. If she weren't so bubbly and innocent, Luke might almost think she has something to hide.

Maybe if he prods her just a little more she'll tell him about it.

"A worthy calling," he says gravely. "I'm assuming you used to dance in the pond yourself?"

"Oh no, I couldn't dance then!"

Duck laughs at the ridiculousness of such an idea; it's sort of a wistful laugh.

"I couldn't do anything but watch."

Luke catches the wistfulness in her voice.

"Why not? Were you sick then, or injured?"

"N-noo, I just -"

Duck flushes, suddenly aware of just how easy it would be to slip up and spill her TERRIBLE SECRET.

"I just, I - I didn't know how, and - you know it takes a lot of training to learn to do ballet!"

Luke nods sympathetically. "I understand. It was a while before I was any good at history, before I had someone to teach me."

Chiron is a good teacher. Annoying at times, and a stooge for the gods, but good at what he does.

In a carefully casual voice - "And you're right, training in a pond must be nearly impossible."

"It's not really the pond that's the problem as much as not having the right kind of legs," Duck explains.

"- I mean muscles!"

.....So she did live in a pond.

And the right kind of legs....

"And not having the right head for it either, I'd imagine?"

His smile is a trifle more confident and smug than it used to be.

Just a trifle.

"Yeah, I don't have a head for that kinda stuff at all!" Duck agrees, with a sigh.

"I mean, I don't really have a head for anything much . . . I mean I'm just really bad at a lot of things like being smart and stuff . . ."

"Aw, c'mon, everyone's good at something," Luke says as he carefully starts taping into the empathy his father gave him as a birthright. Duck may not notice, but unless she can tell something's acting on her brain she'll find herself wanting to tell Luke the truth about things.

"Like, what did you do before you enrolled in your new school?"

Duck scratches her head.

(It doesn't take a lot of empathy to get Duck to talk.)

"Well, uh . . . mostly just swam . . ."

Duck is pretty good at swimming.

Okay, swimming. That leaves fish, waterfowl, or some kind of strange lake dwellers.

"What I guess I was asking," he asks after a brief pause to lick some frosting off his fingers, "is what you were before you started going to school."

"What I . . . . was?"

Duck is definitely sweating a little.

"I mean I'm the same as I've always been really . . ."

Inside, she's still just a duck!

"Well," he says, finally voicing his first guess, "what were you before you were a human?"

"HOW DID YOU KNOW?" squeaks Duck.

"I guessed," he told her gently. "Don't worry. If you don't want this spread around, I promise not to tell anybody."

He means it, to. He doesn't stab people in the back unless his plans call for it.

"If I can ask, though," he continues, "what were you, exactly? I've heard of people turning into animals, but not the other way around. Or at least not as often."

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