milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The bar looks just the same, Duck thinks, as she comes in, putting one foot carefully in front of the other.

The school and the dorms and everything look just the same too. It's weird - she feels like at least something should be different now. Now that she beat the raven and saved the prince and everything. Shouldn't something be different?

Or maybe it's Duck who's a little bit different. As evidenced by the fact that she's heading over to the bar, and there's a chair in her way, and she's thinking deep thoughts, and she actually manages to walk around it instead of tripping over it.

. . . she then walks straight into a waitrat with a tray, though, so maybe not that much has changed after all.

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"Hey Duck!" Tyler waves from a spot further down the Bar, with notebooks in front of him. There's the familiar thing with teeth sitting at his feet, gnawing on some rawhide. "Haven't seen you in a while."

"Hi, Tyler!" Duck bounds over, brightened immediately out of her thoughts by the prospect of conversation.

"Yeah I guess . . . I mean there was some weird stuff that happened at home so . . . but everything's okay now!"

(Duck doesn't think much more than a week has passed since she's been here, at most. But time is strange in Kinkan Town.)

"You look like you're working hard on something . . ."

"Just re-writing some notebook pages after they got ruined a couple weeks ago by monkey drool."

Time is strange ANYWHERE especially in Milliways. Kinkan Town might come somewhat close though.

"What kind of weird stuff?"

"Oh, just . . . stuff . . ." Duck says. Evasively.

Duck is best at specifics, and also secrets.

"There was kind of a problem with someone being mean and putting my friend in danger but - we stopped her! So that's good, right?"

...Yeh, now Tyler doesn't suspect anything at all little miss magical-changing-duck-girl.

"Yeh, I think that's good, why was she hurting him?"

"You know," Duck says, frowning and leaning back against Tyler's table, "I really wish I got that . . . ."

Maybe if she really understood what was going on with Kraehe - no, Rue! - she'd be able to help her.

"She didn't say why?"

Winston meanwhile tears himself away from his rawhide just long enough to 'sniff' one of Duck's legs.

We hope she doesn't mind much.

"Well . . . sort of, but . . . I mean . . . when people are mad, a lot of times what they're mad at isn't - really what it's about, right? They're mad because they're sad, or guilty, or - or all kinds of stuff. If you can just find out why, then -"

That's Princess Tutu's job. But somehow she doesn't think Rue will let Princess Tutu dance with her.

"...most people get mad or guilty because they're scared of something." Tyler finishes, without really thinking about it too much.

Ofcourse, he's thinking about the ball of bantha crap that is Ron Peterson's home life, but the same principle applies.

Fear messes you UP.

". . . yeah," Duck says, nodding vigorously.

"Yeah that one too - that one a lot. I guess - all the feelings are really tied together, aren't they?"

Maybe that's why it's so harmful when one completely takes over.

"If it were all just one emotion, it'd drive anyone crazy...but when you come at it another way....feeling no emotion at all it'd drive you nuts too. And sometimes fear can be helpful, warning somebody away from danger..."

"Fear can be the scariest feeling of all," Duck says - oblivious to redundancy in her statement. Mostly she's just thinking about Mytho, and how he cried when he got that heartshard back.

"You're supposed to be able to get over it but -"

Vanishing . . . that terrifies me.

"I think you're right . . . sometimes it's good to figure out another way . . . and it's better than feeling nothing at all!"

"Amen to THAT."

And if accenting his owner's opinion, Winston's now just going to WHUFF into Duck's leg for a second.

"- !!!!!! what was that!" squeaks Duck, manging to clap her hands over her mouth and avoid a quack at the last minute.

"...Winston!" Tyler leans down to look under the table and see the smuggest little mesozoic killing machine ever wag it's scaly black tail at him.

Duck has taken a few hasty steps back, and now peers down.

". . . . oh," she says, a bit weakly, and backs her ankles prudently against a chair. "Um, hi."

"I think that was just him sniffing you to get to know you." Tyler replies conversationally, rolling his eyes at the miniraptor. "He's just trying to look after me."

"Koh!" And the 'new' person who scans and scents like that little fluffy flailing thing has been investigated properly. Winston's going to go back to gnawing at his rawhide now. "He must think you're okay, most people he growls at."

"I - I'm glad he likes me," Duck says.

It's true that he's a lot less scary when she's this size than when she's duck-sized, although a predator is a predator regardless.

Bravely: "If he wants to be friends then, then I'm always glad to have more friends!"

Tyler reaches down and gives Winston a little bit of a head scratching, there's another whuffing with a tail-wag in response.

"One of these days, you can probably play fetch with him. That's one of his favorite games, especially when he's got his toy octopus."

"Fetch?" echoes Duck, a little blankly.

Needless to say, Duck never had a dog.

"It's a game, where you throw something for him to bring back."

Duck's probably never seen a regular dog. And probably never will.

"You know what, how about I get his favorite chewtoy, and I can show you?"

. . . if he's got a favorite chewtoy with him, it means he probably won't be chewing on anything else, right?

"O-okay!" Duck says, with a smile to show willing. "Let's do it!"

It's a scant few minute of Tyler leaving the table to run upstairs for Winston's favorite toy.

And probably the longest of Duck's life thus far, spent warily watching the black and gold mesozoic terror.

Winston does perk up and bark when he hears the sound of his bike-chain octopus clinking.

If you can understand something, it's not as scary! . . . right?

"- huh? Is something wrong?" Duck asks, looking around bravely for whatever might have startled the dinosaur thing.

Nothing is wrong at all.

Well, Duck would know that if she knew the wagging of the tail to mean 'happy raptor'.

Tyler appears at the foot of the stairs, and more happy raptor signals show.

"Yeh...you love getting to play fetch with this doncha boy?" He chuckles reaching down to scratch Winston's head, and nod Duck towards the back door.

Ohhhhhh. It means he's happy. Okay, then! Duck attempts to memorize this for later use, and scurries obligingly towards the door.

Once they're outside and a reasonably polite distance from the backdoor, Tyler stops, shaking the chain octopus a bit before throwing it as hard and far as he can.

Once it's thrown there's a joyous leap and bounding through the tall grass after the toy, accompanied with many screeching barks before it's brought back and deposited with a wagging tail at Tyler's feet.

"You wanna try?"

"Watch out, Duck," Mia says, helping to catch Duck with one arm and the waitrat's tray with a spell. The tray happens to be her order and she gently floats it to her table.

Her other arm is holding Cepheus, who has started a time that can be quite tough for parents with lots of friends: stranger anxiety.

Once everyone is upright, Mia puts her other hand on Cepheus, as he's holding tight to her and hiding his face in her robe.

"Silver piece for your thoughts?"

"Oh - thanks, Mia!" Duck looks up, a bright smile on her face, and wobbles herself straight again.

"Uh, nothing really, I was just thinking how everything's normal - isn't it?"

"Is it? I saw Fakir recently and he said it was over."

Whatever "it" was.

"He looked rather beat up at the time. I gave him a healing nut, so that should have fixed him up."

And Mia notices what Cepheus is doing.

"Cepheus? What are you doing? You smell something funny?"

He snuggles himself further in Mia's robe and whines a little.

"Oh - you did?"

Duck breathes, like someone relieved about something she hadn't realized she was worrying about.

"That's great . . . thank you, Mia! He's a really terrible patient, you know," she adds, frowning. "He keeps trying to do stuff when he's still hurt . . ."

"Yes. Fakir should be just fine."

She smiles and gently bounces Cepheus a little.

"Would you like to have dinner with us, Duck?"

Cepheus whines a little more.

"Yeah, that'd be great! I'm really kinda hungry," Duck says, as if she's just now realizing it - which isn't too far from the case - and then blinks over at the baby.

"Hey, is Cepheus okay?"

"Please, have a seat," Mia says, gesturing to her table.

Dinner tonight looks like soup and a sandwich for Mia and a bowl of mushy cereal for Cepheus to play in.

"I'm not sure what he's doing," she answers, lifting Cepheus up.

The baby babbles some and then, when he sees Duck, he fusses again and reaches for Mia's robe to hide in again.

"I've never seen him do this before, unless he smells something he doesn't like. The first time he did this, I thought he was-"

She takes another look at Cepheus before letting him hide in her robe again.

"Cepheus, are you scared of Duck? You silly thing, Duck isn't going to hurt you."

"Scared . . . of me?" squeaks Duck.

I'm afraid of Princess Tutu, Mytho had said that one time, but - but that was Princess Tutu! Surely not even a baby could be afraid of Duck.

"But why would he be -"

"Because he's starting to recognize that people are different. He's probably starting to prefer people that he knows well like Draco, his grandparents, and me. I'm sure you won't be the only person he'll act this way around."

Mia bounces Cepheus a little more.

"Cepheus, it's okay. Duck is really sweet and she wants to be your friend."

He peeks at Duck with one grey eye, still unsure.

"I really do!" Duck adds, encouragingly.

"Come on, sweetie," Mia says, coaxing one of Cepheus's hands into hers. "See, Duck is sweet. And I'm right here with you. There's no reason to be afraid at all."

Mia steps over so that Duck can take Cepheus's hand.

Duck reaches out a cautious hand, ready to pull it back instantly if Cepheus shows signs of being afraid; the last thing she wants to do is scare anybody else.

Mia lets Duck take Cepheus's hand and she rubs the baby's back.

"See? It's all right, baby."

Cepheus instinctively grasps Duck's fingers with his tiny fingers, still peeking with one eye.

"I think the only way to fix this is to have Cepheus spend more time with you. The more familiar he is with you, the more comfortable he'll be."

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