Chapter Text
“Are you crazy?” Millie's half-panicked, exhausted, frigid face widened. “Fire power inside is-”
“Such temerity will get you nowhere!”
A heavy cuff upside the head, courtesy of Magica’s gemless ironwood staff, smacked harshly, almost causing Millie to stumble.
But she didn’t. She forced her legs to buckle; though she slightly bent down with immense hurt, she raised herself to stand before Magica again. She ignored the raging bruise beneath her chin.
Millie brushed dust off her new outfit. She merely managed not to stare in disgust at how much it reflected Magica’s, nor did she try to think how much she ‘owed’ Magica for having gotten it from Ithaquack. That was one of the few truths. Millie knew by the complaints that came with it.
The top half was dress-like; sleeves cut off at the shoulders’ bottom. The top half was dark, and the bottom half was like her eyes. Halfway, an orange trapezoid shot up, ending as it met her displayed pendant. Below her exposed upper arms, segregated cloth adorned her forearms with a similar clothing scheme. A dark skirt wrapped her legs, hiding her feet. Finally, she bore a cape–dark on the inside and as white as her feathers on the outside. It smelled fresh.
Disgusting, all of it. The color of herself trapped by the dark of Magica. Millie viscerally gagged.
She tried to direct her attention elsewhere, to anything but the present pain and anything to do with Magica.
Yes it will…
Yet though she thought this, something inside froze, making her submissive beneath Magica’s menacing gaze and all-powerful presence. Her upper torso neck singed as Magica drew on Millie’s power, her power, her mother’s power. Millie stood, numb and dull. Afraid and cowering, silent and still. As Magica drew forth a current of magic, Millie decided not to verbally challenge her again.
It wasn’t worth it. No spark of rebellion was. Millie sighed.
“Pay attention, petulant child!”
This time, a light slap of a dark, rich green hand met her cheek–such as Magica’s color, now that she’d thoroughly bathed and soaked in the rich plumes her pendant provided.
“One week of freezing colds in the back seems not to have simmered you. Must we repeat?”
An electricity buzzed on the pendant. Millie loosened her muscles, looking down, then up.
“Good choice, Millie. An apprentice must learn to always obey.”
The pochard breathed. I will… survive this… survive…
Millie meekly focused on Magica. She stiffed up. The sorceress’s expectant gaze watched over her. Observing, calculating. A gleam of approval edged.
“Now, again , you hothead, watch how I craft the flames, keep the flow of magic unseen until I choose.” Millie indeed watched.
She felt the invisible flow siphoned from her pendant. Each act of utility felt as if it withered her soul until she’d become a dead dry husk–as if she wasn’t already an emotionless object flayed about by the world.
“Watch it by feeling where it is. Become aware of where it is, Millie.” Millie did indeed ‘see’ it. So she nodded.
“Controlling the flow is important. You must also feel it, think it, be it, to use it to your whims as you decide to. Too much emotion, and it might consume you.”
Millie watched the theatrics of Magica’s dancing digits and waltzing hands. Her staff waved about it, instinctually and uselessly ingrained into her movement.
The magic settled in a pool swirling around the wood in the fireplace. “And too little, well, you end up splatting. That’s what lets others kill you when you are fragile and pathetic and weak.” She kept drawing, accumulating and constructing a formation of lines.
Why bother telling me this? I am useless at anything…
The young pochard shot forth a frosty breath. Freezing air crept into the living room. Her tiny body shivered yet felt nothing, much too used to the hellish depths of winter already. Her minuscule amount of body heat seemed to continually drain. Magica had no problems–as if stealing from her. Still, Millie watched on, listlessly learning.
Magica then snapped her fingers.
Suddenly the stolen power returned to Millie, its burden now in her control.
Millie fell to her knees and her back exploded with pain–every ligament suffered.
She clenched her teeth at the momentous pressure of the magic. The invisible structure in the fireplace was heavy . She raised her arms instantly. The pressure mounted. Fingers desperately reached out as if grabbing onto it. Concentration poured into not letting the magic release. Sweat broke and lungs labored. The curling of her body, to accommodate the flow, was not natural nor comfortable.
Millie somehow found herself doing this.
She hadn’t expected to deal with so much so fast.
“Good, good, you haven’t died yet. Good!” Magica mockingly patted her head. The rising morning sunlight lit her fiery yellow stare. Millie’s heart beat faster, infected by the glinting evil.
Why me… my luck to deal with this… aghhhh! Anguish tore in the mindscape.
“It’s rather cold in here right now, hm? I would rather like to be warm when our guest arrives this evening, and longer after that. So, unless you wish for magical shrapnel–” the ironwood staff tapped her forehead, its surface smooth yet prickly. “–I suggest you figure out how to ignite it!”
Disbelief croaked in Millie’s squeezing gullet. “H-how-” Another smack of the staff. She just managed to not relapse her focus. If anything, the instinct to survive saved her.
“As I told you, you must feel magic to truly use it!” Magica yelled. “Merely shuffling around cords of energy makes you worthless!” The staff sharply jabbed Millie’s chest, eliciting a muffled gasp of pain. The sorceress’s aura blazed with ferocity. “Now feel it, use it, ignite it!”
Why me! Why me! Why me!
A well of lividness and hatred swelled out, breaking out from the cold depths within Millie. She could not control the explosion of rage she felt–at the world and Magica.
She screeched. Of anger–and the pain of another thwack to the back of her head. She knew that was a bruise. It came just short of knocking her down and out.
The pendant responded to the flare and strength of her tumultuous will. Icy heat hissed, and steam arose from her upper chest. It dampened her clothes, and the hotness caused her eyes to water.
Millie heard the air in the fireplace spark. The invisible structure sprouted to life. Pure magic transmuted into physical and real, hot, hot fire. Walls of flame exploded to life, burning the dry wood.
“Excellent! Excellent!” Magica practically squealed with giddy, outdoing the rampaging crackles and pops of the searing embers. Once more, she patted Millie on the head. “Use that negativity well in you each and every time from now on. Such truly is the spirit of the darkness!” A soft sparkle lit in her malicious facial expressions. “Now, simply keep this fire going until midnight! I’m off to work, then. Ta, ta, Millie!” She snatched her car keys and left.
This left Millie alone, to maintain the fire of her volition and will and power.
And struggling to not relapse, holding the power in place, to not let it blow out and kill her.
Why… me… why… me…
The force of the writhing mass of power pummeled Millie down to both knees. However, this just caused something inside Millie to fight. A fuel of her own burned inside, lit by a raw desire to live. So found herself feeding off of it. Even if it crushed her heart.
The force of the artificial node bulged and pulsed. Millie contorted her aching fingers. She forced it to contract more often than it expanded. Heavy sweat and creaking breath soon showed. Sounds whisked by her. She tried to understand, but the pendant whispered too cryptically.
Millie remembered her mother. She mustn’t end like her, let the family legacy die like this.
Thoughts dwindled. Millie kept all attention upon the burning whirlwinds before her. The fireplace, in time, smelled of rosey ashes and toasty cinders. The sun rose higher, burning bright and white–then it hit its peak, and lowered until blue began to fade from the sky.
By this time, as purple crept above the horizon, her muscles were in agony. An iciness began to creep into the house. The once large supply of wood was at its last cache. The flames flickered, close to death. Still, she knew the fire must live. So it must be hot. Or else she wouldn’t.
Millie waved her hands, stoking it from a range. Doing so chewed at her life energy. It renewed the fireplace. A burst of hotness rushed over a shivering Millie. Simultaneously, coldness bit her and her uniform trapped her in a deathly heat.
It doesn’t matter why… doesn’t matter… just survive…. just… live…
Eventually, once she was sickly and pale, the door creaked open. The bang against the wall agitated. Millie, half-hopeful, seeing Magica back from work as Funso’s.
However, this time she came with company. Millie eked a furtive glance. The first to enter was an unamused Magica. Behind her came a tall, suited rooster with a mouth composed entirely of metal–the dreaded Steelbeak of Duckburg. He possessed a loud, prominent presence. Millie shivered, quickly shying away to keep to herself and the task. The fire’s brilliant colors reflected Steelbeak's image inside them anyway. All for her to see.
Magica paid no attention to Millie, leaving her to burn on. Millie listened in, keeping her face and focus on the licking oranges and graying oak inside the gleaming brick of the fireplace.
The small waver of hope died. There’d be no help from Magica. It was do this or burn out.
“Welcome to me adobe, Steelbeak. And no, there are no formalities or anything special for you. You want a date with me, you do all the work.” Passive-aggressiveness poisoned her tone.
Steelbeak’s steel beak clacked loudly, chuffing. “I expected nothing less nor anything more from you, my lovely sorceress. All I need is one night to prove myself.”
“Hmm.” The staff tapped the ground. “Challenge accepted.”
“That’s all I wanted, indeed.” His bellowing boasted greatly. “Erina, if you’d cook. Please, while we chat about both pleasure and business.”
“On it, Mr. Steelbeak!”
Then her pendant burned in alarm–Millie felt Steelbeak’s curiosity fall upon her. “So, this is the little specimen you’ve scooped up. Very nice. That job was quite difficult, you know.”
“She’s learning fast, if you must know.” Millie shivered at Magica’s short cackle of delight. “Quite something, isn’t she? Well worth burning one of the few resources I had left at my disposal…”
At that, the villains move away from the living and to the kitchen. Millie chose to let their harsh, evil voices drown out. The sole solace was the popping snarly of the fire. She was hell-bent on hearing anything but it. Her searing, ill eyes blindly stared upon the wavering plasmas.
Contrary to her will, however, the plonk of dress shoes interrupted her attempted mediation. Millie’s feathers hackled. Her impassively seething eyes contacted the red iris of the until now elusive Erina. Millie sneered at her, suddenly wishing she could bring the flame to her.
However, with a lack of strength and forced commitment to sustain the fire, Millie only noted her illustrious appearance. Erina was an Andaman teal duck, with a thin but stock build. She was smartly dressed. She was dark brown, with a pale face and throat, and buffy markings dotted about. Millie growled in her gullet.
Averse to Millie’s expectations, though, Erina stepped closer, toward the fireplace. Her red irises glowed at Millie. A scent of fear arose. Shadows from the fire danced around her. The black wavings flickered upon the gray stone and wooden wall of the swamp hut. There was not quite remorse there, but there was a shine of guilt.
“So… you… you are Millie…” She spoke gently, yet a roughness strangled it ever so softly.
Yes, I am! Wouldn’t you have liked to have known before now, wouldn’t you?
Not wishing to feel Magica’s wrath–she quivered just that thought, her stomach roiled–Millie stared back, watching the red of the fire in the red of Erina’s irises, projecting a steaming, boiling soul.
Erina cocked her head. “I hadn’t thought… a child… Magica…” She shook, stepping back. “I can’t… I shouldn’t…” Millie blinked, unsure of what to feel in her thrumming, echoing chest.
Stealbeak then called to her, breaking the moment. “Erina, more wood to the fire, please! The fire is rather occupied burning. You’re to cook there. And should the fire fail on you, tell us!”
“On it!” Erina said back, still affixed to Millie.
The older woman walked much closer. She kneeled at a diagonal angle to Millie, not blocking the fire, but not at her side. The magic-sparked light reflected in her dim gaze. Millie’s hurting fingers twitched; the heat flared. The veins in her arms surged with a tiring flow.
Erina’s beak gaped open. “I… am I sorry?…” Though she looked at Millie, the words went everywhere. “I… think I am… This job… so long since…” She outreached, the ghosts of feathers bristling upon Millie’s cheek.
Then she jerked up and backwards without warning. Millie almost broke focus–the roaring of the broke out. She screamed at the pendant in her throat. A surge of energy drained from her. The fire died back down. Stuttering breath struggled to catch up. Her body quaked.
Millie looked back–now it was her again. Alone again. Basking in the warmth of the fire despite being cold, cold, cold, exhausted and hungry and cold. The flowing power tingled. Erina was gone, the wood was almost gone, and every last essence of herself was effectively gone.
The clink of wine glasses and guffaws of Magica and Steelbeak violated her eardrums now that her flow was broken.
“Hm, you’re not… half as bad as I thought…” Magica complimented him.
Steelbeak hummed. “And you’re doubly as crafty… and devious...”
Magica hiccuped, her tongue and words slurring. “Shall we… wait for food, dear sir? Such would be a pleasure.”
“Yes-” Steelbeak burped mid-sentence, manically laughing. “-we shall! We shall wait, indeed. A heh, heh…”
Millie wished for the pendant to mute the world–and it obeyed her will, surprisingly. She could only hope Magica did not pick up on this.
She stared straight back at the raging fire–and her face became wet, wet with frigid tears. The battering bruises and twisted limbs and tired body screamed in agony.
The fire mocked her, flickering. Millie found her loathing it. It had everything she wanted. Care, attention, purpose, feeling, freedom, love .
Why me… the world hath no love for me…
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Art of Millie May Pochard, drawn by DucktaleDudette.
