Flesh and Blood
“WebbigailVanderquack! What exactly do you think you’re-“ “—honestly you can’t just expect us to sit in the dark when you’re-“ “on’t look at me! I’m a sweet little innocent boy along for the ride! It’s these- uh,- scoundrels who-“ “-ould’ah been dangerous! De’Spell’s terrible trickery is nothing to-“ “-but it sounded like this was kind of a big deal, and like, maybe we should know what’s going on too- I’m not saying-“ “xhhyuh byoyss knnxowh bhettaar! Eye khhannot bhexllevuh-“ “-asn’t done anything wrong! Even if she does have something to do with Magica it’s not fair to-“
Lena stared at the group of loudly yelling strangers quietly, eyes wide and back pressed against the couch cushion. They were all speaking at once and over top of each other, and at this point she wasn’t even sure if they were actually communicating to each other so much as airing grievances out under the pretense of arguing.
Or at least Lena assumed they were arguing- for all she knew Muppet-Voice-Donald was casting a fucking spell for how little she understood of his impassioned speech.
What was interesting about this group though, was that even though the adults looked unholy amounts of pissed none of them had actually bothered to do anything but yell. She knew that if she’d spoken to some of her foster parents this way without any sort of bodily protection she’d probably end up getting mopped up off the floor like a sad piece of salami dropped on the dirty kitchen tile.
Lena was starting to take covert looks for the exit over the shoulder of the couch by the time things calmed down.
And by ‘calmed down’ she did mean Muppet-Voice turned roadkill red and yelled “KKUHHWUHYYUHEEEITTT!!!!”in the loudest voice she’d heard without use of a microphone.
There was a moment of awkward silence mostly filled by people shuffling nervously, McDuck adjusting his stupid hat, and Donald panting.
“Do you guys…like…need a minute?” Lena asked semi-genuinely, before wincing as everyone turned their head her way. Mark that down as another disadvantage to being corporeal again- she could no longer quip things sarcastically to herself or ask rhetoric questions without other people actually, yknow, hearing her.
McDuck scowled at her and opened his beak, but Terminator-Grandma beat him to the punch with a put-upon sigh.
“No we do not ‘need a minute’- Webbigail, boys, we will be having words about this behavior later, but for now you need to decide if you can actually responsibly contribute to this conversation, or if you are just acting out for the sake of your boredom.” The old lady’s words seemed to have a sobering effect on the green one and the blue one, but Webby and the red one seemed as stubborn as ever.
“I mean, this is obviously important right? I’m not- it’s probably going to involve us later anyway, so I’d rather know about it now than when it inevitably ends up dragging us into some sort of wacky adventure without any prior knowledge.” The red duckling explained tersely, his arms folded in a manner that was probably supposed to make him look more firm but just made him seem unsure.
Webby nodded vigorously, her bow seemingly stuck to her head by some sort of fucking black magic.
“Yeah! Plus- Lena seems nice! She needs someone on her side too!” Webby proclaimed with a smile, and Lena blushed and itched her arm uncomfortably. That was…pretty fucking naïve of Webby honestly- it’s not like she actually knew Lena or anything! She had no reason to want to help her or even empathize with her at all! If shaking her hand and weighing ‘less than a bag of groceries’ or whatever was enough to lower her guard like this then she’d probably be pretty easy to trick.
Acknowledging that should have helped to make Lena feel more in control- it was a weakness she could reasonably exploit in a situation where she needed all the help she could get after all- but for some reason all she felt was vaguely guilty for thinking it instead.
McDuck rolled his eyes like a moody teenager (Lena would know) and scoffed.
“She doesn’t need you on her side lass, she’s probab’ly got Magica on her side!” He motioned sarcastically, and Lena huffed, clenching the pillow beside her angrily.
“Hey quick question about that old man- if Magica and me are such good friends than why was I hanging out in her amulet huh? You meet a lot of people who do that for fun?” Lena snapped, her heart beating rapidly in her palms.
It wasn’t smart to provoke him like this, not when she was basically at his mercy, but she was tired of the assumption that Magica was anything other than yet another adult who had hurt her. It was bad enough that ‘Aunt’ Magica thought she was Lena’s lord and master and the best thing to happen to duck-kind- she didn’t need these wakkos promoting that agenda too.
Instead of screaming at or hitting her McDuck blinked in surprise, his posture straitening slightly.
In fact, Lena realized with a start that all the other ducks in the room were looking at her weirdly. Lena frowned, curling in on herself defensively.
Surprisingly, it was the duckling wearing the blue shirt that spoke up in the resulting silence.
“What so Magica shoved you in there for like ten-hundred years?” He asked bluntly, and Lena sneered mockingly at him without even thinking about it.
“Dude I’d be fucking crazy if I was in there for that long, I barely survived five years with my mind intact.” Unfortunately her laissez faire response was not received all that well by the group as a whole.
“Swear jar! the f-bomb’s like twenty dollars man-“ That was the green one, whose priority’s seemed to be at least somewhat reasonably motivated. The rest of them seemed to exclaim something more to the effect of ‘FIVE YEARS????’ which seemed a lot less understandable to Lena.
“That was a joke!! I was joking! You weren’t actually supposed to be imprisoned for years-“ “-why on earth woul’d that harpy put a youngin’ in such a-“ “Oh my gosh that’s a long time to be stuck in one place! Were you conscious for all of that? Or is it more like-“
Again, it was the sailor duck with the voice-box of a stepped on chipmunk that interrupted the din- this time by waving his arms around wildly in a bizarre sort of shooing motion at the group.
“Haarre xhyuh hxall chrriight? Dhoh xhyuh hxhavv annyxhheexhwonn xhhoo hhiss xhlookiinguh fforr xhyuh? Xhhuh xhyuy nnheedd ahnxhyyhwonn to khhall xkhomeone fforr xhyuy?” He (probably?) asked, his voice earnestly concerned and earnestly un-fucking-stadable as ever.
Lena squinted at him, wondering honestly if he really was delusional enough to assume other people actually knew what he was saying or if he was just fucking with them.
Because if Lena had a voice like that she’d probably just say random bullshit and watch people sweat.
British Grandma cleared her throat, apparently the designated translator for the night.
“Donald’s right, no matter what questions we have for you or how important they are- if you really have been trapped in that cursed amulet for…five years then it’s best we inform the people missing you. Do you remember the number of someone we can contact for you?” Beakley gravely, hand massaging her temples.
Lena blinked. And then she blinked again.
Then she burst out laughing.
The sound was odd- wheezing and stuttering and somehow much louder than she remembered it being, her lungs aching with the nostalgic effort. It was nice to laugh again- it had definitely been longer than five years since she had genuinely done it.
After a moment Lena calmed down, wiping her sore eyes with the worn sleeve of her sweater, still chuckling occasionally.
Without even looking Lena could tell everyone was staring at her like she’d spontaneously grown an extra beak, but Lena couldn’t bring herself to honestly care.
She leaned back into the cushion behind her, eyes staying firmly on her idly fiddling hands, suddenly exhausted.
“I won’t lie, I’m kind of flattered that you think I have anyone out there waiting for me, but nah, my family trees gutter trash all the way down. Magica chose me cause’ nobody would notice I was missing.” Lena answered, trying to make her tired words come out as flippant as possible. It didn’t hurt as much as it used to, that no one cared, but it was hard not to feel the sting of it at all.
“Choose you for what?” Webby asked, wide focused eyes peering at her with the intensity of a thousand hawks. It kind of seemed like maybe Webby just did everything with that sort of intensity though- Lena couldn’t honestly picture her doing anything halfway.
Lena ran her hand tiredly through her feathers, blowing out a nervous breath.
“That’s… she needed me for a lot of stuff really, but I guess basically my flesh?”
The green one said “Hmm. Don’t like that.” at the same time the red one put his hands to his head and said’ “Your WHAT????”
Lena let out a long sigh as the rest of the room broke out into frantic inquiries again. This family really seemed to like yelling.