~The story of a Princess's song and an ugly mallard~
The loft is where the princess had gone to find a wooden boat. Her name is Odella. A fitting name for her bright skirt competing against the intruding beams of sunlight. Two bands of see-through fabric tighten the skirt around her waist, and as it sways with her every step and lean, they glisten like the crystals of ocean waves. “There it is~”
Prismic particles gather around Odella as she ties a rope to the boat’s stem. Shen snaps her fingers and the world blinks her out of the loft and now onto the wet sand crashing beneath her bare soles. The boat bobs in front of her. Swan lake and the woodlands beyond the cottage welcome her view. Her jiggly cheeks blooms rose out of excitement as she boards her feet and grabs the oars. “Hmm~hmm~” she hums, “hmmmm~hmm~hmmm~hmm~hm~”
Deers and does, snow tigers and leopards, and axolotls, frogs and fishes breathe in the fresh gust of wind humming along with the lullaby of Odella. Fishes most especially, gather around her boat, popping their heads out of the water to be gently patted by her silky smooth fingers.
Odella sets her boat at the center of the lake. She stands up, trying to balance herself with the thoughts of falling off the boat, but her fears disappear. Her tongue rolls back then relax her throat. From her diaphragm, a melodic voice of serenity swirls with the wind trying to take her attention. But she sings, her golden hair flowing with the breeze, a leg forward with her hands placed on her chest. Her sustained tone of highs catches the ears of mallards migrating over the nearby alpine mountain ranges.
The flock stops by and floats their bellies on the surface of the lake. They run around and play as Odella continues to sing. Then suddenly. An agonizing, sored scream shutters stop her voice before she could close a final note. The bird, a mallard among the flock, cries so hard that the animals in and around the lake disperses and hides under the shades of nature.
Ugly…the mallard is now. It never rests its cries. Even the winds are bewildered. Odella sits on her boat observing the crying mallard. And now the other mallards start jeering at it.
"YOU RUINED THE SONG!"
"BITE THAT LONG TONGUE OF YOURS!"
"YOU DON'T BELONG HERE!"
"WORTHLESS DUCK! PLEASE JUST STOP SCREAMING,"
but the ugly mallard desperately continues screaming. Its voice cracking, its eyes wailing in tears. A literal ugly mallard that intrigued a lovely princess.
Odella raises her hand amidst the jeering and noise. “Silence please” and the wind calms down but the mallards are still running their beaks and comments like gunfire. “Silence…” she demands it. Yet the mallards don’t seem to hear her. Even the fishes who are below the rocky reef could hear her demand yet the mallard flapping their wings on the surface? Don’t they have ears?
Odella stands up. She wants to scream out for silence but that will make her not so different as the noisy flock. She clenches a fist next to her head while her other clenches by her side. Out of nowhere, a white lion roars from her palace. The lion roars even louder after hearing a minority of the mallards still jeering at the crying one. Then finally, all animals have heard except for the ugly mallard.
The crying mallard flaps its wings against the water surface. Screaming like a newborn having a tantrum but instead, one of its wings is slightly uncoordinated with the other flapping ruthlessly. How does a mallard somehow get a broken wing? Odella wonders, but maybe it broke its wing while speeding down from the alpine ranges? Odella wonders if there is more under its feathers.
The princess gestures a flowing motion of her arm and hand in front of her. Prismatic particles once again cloud around her body, now her skirt and shirt shift in values as the two bands of see-through fabric around her waist shower down into a dress. Her oversized bear shirt tightens around her hips and outlines her figure. Then more and more particles gather around her hands where she now wears gloves embroidered with silver garnets. The crown of her head materializes three swan feathers, stiff as silver that cleanly bands her golden cotton hair.
Her lustrous glimmering skin hides the sympathy she has inside and even deeper is the slight feeling of disgust, disappointment, and regret. But she encapsulates these emotions, well enough for her beauty and the true nature she has as a princess to shine in the cries of agony.
The prismatic particles condense into feathers magically revolving around Odella. She steps out of the boat, clears her thoughts, and walks on water. Snowy white magic follows beneath her feet. The other ugly mallards fall behind as they push the boat behind the princess. They bump into her.
“Oh sorry”
“No worries” Odella replies, gently pushing the boat away with her fingers and breathing out the white mist. She intends to move closer towards the bird but some other outside mallard comes down on the lake.
A strange creature, a mallard who seems to have bathed in feces in all its life. One wing relentlessly thrashes the waters while the other can barely create a ripple. Instead, this broken wing is shaking
"What happened to you?" ask a green mallard. He repeatedly asks the question in its cries until finally, the ugly mallard calms down.
"M–my wings are hurt"
"I told you to ignore him, darling" whispered a gray mallard, "he is cursed"
"Oh my," shocks the green mallards, "then we better get going" one shudder "Who cares about him anyway",
The others in the flock concur and they flap their wings and never come back.
The ugly mallard looks up in the sky. The flock leaves for the snow haven. He regrets not reasoning himself with them, then again, he continues with his attention-seeking wails.
With wide eyes and soon a gentle face, Odella walks closer to the bird, But swans as the size of her wooden boat paddle their webbed feet and stop the princess from stepping any closer.
"You heard it's cousin princess." addresses one of the elder swans much bigger than any of the swans--even than the princess. Its wings span over two swans and intend to intimidate Odella. “It’s evil, cursed.”
“Must you be out for just a single mallard lady Ullen?” Odella questions, “Evil may it be. Any life on my Swan lake must be thoroughly open. For it is the curse of this spring that I must seal but cannot control. My seal, my responsibility. And right now, it’s cries on my waters—is my duty to listen.”
Ullen lowers her wings but then she stretches them far out of her side in an attempt to back her off.
“Your actions at present are also my responsibility. I’m sorry for putting you all in such a curse. But I know you won’t stop me, Ullen.”
“You’re right princess, I will not stop you but my actions are because of the lake, not you. We cannot leave this place as this is the only oasis amidst the white world outside of the estate. We animals owe to your protection and duty princess, forgive our inability to fight against this curse.”
Odella walks to the side of Ullen’s wing and passes by to bend her knees for the weeping ugly mallard. She opens her baby palms and caresses the mallard’s underside of his beak. The mallard stops weeping and opens its wide blue eyes.
"Poor bird.” Odella kneels on the waters. Her revolving feathers drifted on the water’s clear surface. “What’s wrong?”
The mallard struggles to raise its broken wing. Shaking, and a wincing face, he shows to the flock and Odella a hole in his flesh. An outer layer of feathers simply covered the injury to which no one has taken notice.
The flock is in shock.
Odella cannot touch the gore. There is no blood but maggots have started eating his flesh.
The mallard cries softly as he bravely lowers his wing on the waters. It tries to avoid screaming and crying in front of Odella, fighting off the curse of the waters that seem to exaggerate the hunger being felt by the maggots, thus the pain of having a part of being eaten alive. “I just want to be with my family…” The mallard vocalizes in pain, “I do not want to look different, act differently. But I just can’t”
It is the curse of Swan Lake. Odella can deeply sympathize. Every day she fights off the urge to be herself, After all, she is never a royal who inherited the estate, only a survivor, a little girl who dwells into the estate and gains the favor with its last owner. She never knew that living rich is boring, to be shunned by others of her own kind because of the affinity with magic more so, a curse. She cannot let these feelings be shown to the inhabitants of the estate. She cannot act weak.
Odella takes the mallard in her arms and speaks in an ancient language. The revolving feathers rise from the water’s surface and swirl around her and the mallard. The princess sings a lullaby, though she cannot heal the mallard’s deep wounds, she can at least remove the parasites feeding off its life. After all, the mallard has spoken and has more life in his actions and words than flesh-eating parasites.
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