Pascal reached Aine’s house and hesitated outside the property by a large oak tree. He knew she was out with her pets; he could hear her holding quiet conversation with them. He pondered how best to approach his future queen in a way that would make her think later she had chosen that path. Pascal looked down at the box in his hands. The duckling made a faint scratching sound from within its prison as it shifted position. Pascal straightened up and strode forward on short but purposeful legs.
Aine was out playing storm-the-moat with her guinea pigs and a couple of sticks. Aine’s games always involved more imagination than Pascal had and he struggled with deciphering her play whenever he came across it. The sticks indicated the front of the castle and the moat; a twig was one guinea’s weapon of choice, and the guinea playing the part of the princess wore only a wreath of dried grasses for a tiara. Pascal understood none of this and was somewhat perplexed by the levels of imagination he could not grasp.
“Hello, Aine,” he said, approaching.
Aine stopped her play and looked up.
“Hello,” she said.
“How are you doing?” Pascal asked.
“Good,” said Aine; too distracted to bother with proper grammar.
“I found a duckling,” Pascall said—forgetting all the conversational build-up he’d imagined previously.
Aine’s eyes lost their distant quality. Her black little corneas flitted past Pascal’s face and landed firmly on the box he held. She was concentrated and engaged. A guinea pig took advantage of this moment to scamper towards a delicious-looking bush, but the other stayed put, chewing a piece of hay and looking in two directions at once.
Pascal decided he must act swiftly. He crouched down and set the box in front of Aine. Her quick little fingers jumped forward and pried the box flaps apart. She peered over the top. The duckling crouched in a corner, looking up at her. His breathing had slowed to less-stressful steadiness and it seemed he was beginning to accept his adventure and perhaps enjoy it a little.
“I bet it belongs at the park,” Aine said with frightening alacrity. Pascal murmured something about how he had in fact found it there.
“Oh,” said Aine. “Then I bet the mother was around somewhere. You might have made it worse by picking it up; we might not be able to find her again.”
“Oh,” said Pascal, deflating a little as she chid him. “Wouldn’t it be better for you to keep it, then?”
“I want to,” Aine said, her eyes never leaving the duckling and her fingers tapping on the box to keep from swooping in to seize the downy mite. “If we can find his family it might be better, though. It’s getting cold, so he might have a better chance staying with me.”
Pascal was disoriented with the jumps her brain made. “So you’ll keep him?” he asked, feeling stupid.
“No. Maybe. Well, yes if we can’t find his mother duck,” was Aine’s somewhat perplexing answer. Her fingers couldn’t stand the strain anymore, they pounced on the duckling and scooped him up to hold him close to her cheek. “I can hear his heart beating,” she said. “Look at his little feet!”
Pascal looked. The toes had tiny, translucent little claws and skin like a bat’s between each. Little veins threaded over and between each toe. After this closer look Pascal still failed to understand the tone of delight in Aine’s voice.
“He’s calmed down a little,” Pascal offered.
“You probably scared him—taking him from his home like that.”
Pascal had not previously considered his actions in this light and now felt somewhat ashamed of himself.
“I didn’t think of that,” he said. They were hard words for him to utter.
“That’s okay,” Aine’s forgiveness was quick and devastating: “you didn’t know.”
Pascal was silenced.
“Let’s go take him back and see if we can find his family,” Aine suggested, scrambling up and making time to smile at Pascal.
This was even more painful for Pascal, who rose, chastened and ready to take orders from the little girl in rainbow striped tights and a faux-fur-lined jacket. Aine gently pressed her lips against the side of the duckling’s hard, walnut-like head and put him back in his box. The duckling cheeped once from the recesses of his prison and then fell silent. Aine realized her guinea pigs were scattered through the yard. She scooped up the one by her feet, then chased down the one foraging amongst the dead leaves under the bush. Aine returned them to their cage, latched it, and then made her way back to Pascal and the box, lips moving as she had a conversation with herself and the invisible spirits and animals always hovering around her. She reached Pascal, picked up the box, and started walking out of the yard.
It took Pascal a moment to get his body working—he was still stunned from the revelation that he had made a thoughtless decision and acted in a way that was not beneficial to one of his subjects. He trailed sadly after Aine, all the more dejected because she had refused his offer to carry the box. Her eyes had widened slightly with surprise at the thought that she might need help to carry a cardboard box containing only a now-empty water dish and a several-ounce duckling.
For the first time in his life Pascal felt unnecessary.
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