sga_flashfic | The Ugly Duckling by keefaq (Fairy Tale Challenge)

Title: The Ugly Duckling
Author:

keefaq
Rating: You could read this to a preschooler.
Pairing: John/Rodney
Length: 2984 words
Thanks to

neevebrody for the quick beta.

In the tradition of the post-Trinity fic and under the influence of Hans Christian Andersen, this is :

The farmyard was a busy place in the morning, full of the squawking and shuffling of animals rousing and looking for their breakfast, but except for the tiny peep of a newly hatched duckling, all was quiet under the baneberry bush. Mother Duck (she’d had a name once, but now, alas, she was just Mother Duck) was waiting impatiently for her last egg to hatch. It was larger than her other eggs had been, and it had remained stubbornly dormant as the first three had opened.

Old Mrs. Daisy McDaisy, who was old enough to be permitted an actual name, was pushing her way under the bush to see the new babies. Mother Duck knew it was Daisy by the slight chattering noise she made when her aged beak trembled. Her quack, quack, quack, now sounded more like clack, clack clack. “Well, well,” she clacked. “How are we getting along here?”

“Three fine new ducklings,” Mother Duck said, pushing the babies forward, since they were all she had to show for her labor. Each baby bowed to Daisy, saying in turn, “I’m Teep,” “I’m Beep” and “I’m Geep,” but Old Mrs. McDaisy hardly noticed them. She was staring at the unhatched egg.

“Is that really your egg?” she asked. “It looks rather more like a turkey egg than a proper duck’s egg. I had a turkey egg in my nest once, and what a world of trouble it was. Fool thing was afraid of water when it came down to it, wouldn’t stick a toe in the lake, couldn’t swim a bit. Waste of my good time raising it up. That turkey egg was just like this one.” She leaned down close to the egg, which had begun to shake a bit. A rough, mumbling sound emerged from it and she jumped back. She clacked her beak nervously. “Well, I’ll just be letting you get back to work on that,” she said, and backed out from under the bush rather more quickly than she usually moved.

Suddenly a tiny hole cracked open in the large egg and Mother Duck could see part of a round blue eye peering out at her. “What is this thing made of anyway?” the hatchling squawked. “Do you have any idea how close it is in here? Am I the only one feeling this is too small a space to be born from? Would it be too much to ask for a little help getting this thing open?” And when Mother Duck continued to stare at the egg in surprise. “What? Hello? Are you brain dead? Help me out of here.”

Mother Duck pecked at the egg lightly. “Hey! Watch it!” the baby shouted.

It was certainly a very loud and rude little hatchling, but she was a good mother and tried not to take it personally. “Come out and meet your nestlings,” she said cheerfully. “These are your sisters, Teep and Geep, and your brother Beep.” The new baby pulled free of the egg and stretched out. He was quite a large duckling. “I believe I will call you Meep,” she said.

“Oh nononono.” the baby squawked. “What kind of ridiculous name is that? Ducks like you should never be allowed to name anything.” He shook off a last bit of eggshell. “My name will be Rodney.”

“Oh, no,” said Mother Duck. “I’m perfectly certain I’m allowed to name you whatever I want.” But the new baby looked so very angry, and Mother Duck so hated confrontations that she found herself trying to compromise. “Rodney could be your middle name,” she suggested.

“Fine, fine,” the baby said, rather contemptuously. “M. Rodney McDuck then. Are we going to be eating anytime before I like, collapse? That is your job, isn’t it? Providing sustenance and all that?”

“Really you don’t need to eat for two or three days,” Mother Duck explained gently and lovingly. “But we could go for a swim if you like.”

Meep rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever,” he said. “If I collapse you’ll have only yourself to blame.”

He continued grumbling and making vague threats all the way down to the water’s edge, where Mother Duck stood and watched all the babies step one by one into the pond. Now, she thought, we will see if this baby really is mine, or whether Old Daisy was right and he is just a turkey placed with my children by mistake. But Meep followed his sisters and brother right into the water and seemed quite competent as a swimmer. He must be my child after all, she thought, and if he is not very pretty it is fortunate at least that he is a strong-willed drake.

“It is time for us to go to the farmyard and meet the other families,” she announced and led the way out of the water. She didn’t notice that Meep was not following at first, and when she turned back to retrieve the little troublemaker he was nowhere to be found.

Rodney wasn’t anxious to follow his idiot siblings into the farmyard for a meet and greet, so he had slipped away and strolled into the barn, where he observed the farmer busily milking the cows. He was sure he could get the milking machines working more efficiently with much less drain on the generator, but unfortunately when he began taking the machine apart the whole milking process came to a screeching halt.

He didn’t notice the sparks that flew off the generator and ignited some dry feed piled nearby until the outraged farmer, exclaiming about idiot young ‘uns almost burning down the farm with their foolishness, grabbed him and tossed him out of the barn into a pile of hay. This caused him to sneeze so violently he could barely stagger out of the hay without being completely suffocated. “I was only trying to help you, you luddite,” he shouted, but the farmer had already gone back into the barn to stamp out the fire. A young gander, who had witnessed everything, gave him a disgusted glare and flew away.

Rodney decided he might as well join his family in the barnyard and get through meeting everyone. His siblings had already been inspected and run off to play, so all eyes were on him when his mother introduced him. Before anyone could respond, the gander who had been in the barnyard stepped forward. “That’s the ugly duckling I was telling you all about,” he said. “The one who almost burned down the whole farm. We should run him off.”

Another voice rose out of the crowd. “Kavanaugh’s right.” At once, they were all on him, kicking, pushing and pinching him without mercy.

How eagerly they all reviled the poor little duckling! “Only five-sixths of the farm is even flammable,” he squawked, but they paid no heed, so that finally he was forced to flee the farm altogether and rushed off, barely alive, alone and miserable.

He ran until his little legs ached with weariness, before dropping exhausted by the side of a lake, hiding himself among the reeds, his heart heavy with shame. “How much they all hate me,” he thought sadly. “Just because I am ugly. They’re just jealous because I am smarter than they are.” He started, causing the reeds around him to shake, when he noticed a beautiful swan swimming in small circles at the edge of the pond, quite near him.

The Swan turned his elegant neck and peered into the reeds, “Hello? Is someone there?” he asked.

“I was just resting,” Rodney replied. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He backed further from the edge of the water to avoid being seen.

The swan gave a small snort of amusement. “Why are you resting in the reeds on a cold day like this?” he asked. “When you could be out in the sunshine?”

“Oh, I don’t mind the cold,” the little duckling said, and it was true. Over the many hours he’d wandered alone his feathers had dried and puffed out thick and warm. “I can think better here in the quiet of the reeds,” he said.

“Oh?” the swan turned and peered into the rushes and Rodney sank back even more, for he feared that if the beautiful creature saw his ugliness he would turn his back on him as all the others had. Rodney wanted to talk just for a little while, to bask in the feeling of being accepted and listened to, even though he knew it was not to last. In the brief glimpse he’d had of the swan’s face before he backed further into the rushes, the swan had looked wistful, almost lonely himself, but Rodney knew that such a beautiful creature could never be alone unless he wanted to be. “What do you think about?” the swan asked. The rustling of the breeze made his voice sound gentle to Rodney.

“I think about so many things,” Rodney said eagerly, for no one had ever asked him that. "I think about all the things we could do to improve the farm,” he said. “I tried to fix the milking machines, I know I could make them work better, but no one gives me a chance to experiment so I can see how to improve things. Everyone is in such a hurry and they get so mad if things don’t work perfectly the first time.” He talked and talked, and the swan listened, and seemed to understand at least some of what he said.

Rodney knew he was talking too much, but the swan didn’t interrupt, and he couldn’t stop the flood of words he’d held inside for so long. Finally he wound down enough to remember that it wasn’t polite to talk and talk without giving anyone else a turn to speak. “What about you?” he asked. “Why are you swimming here alone when you could be enjoying the company of all the other beautiful swans?”

The swan glanced casually over to where the other swans were all milling about together. “They don’t like some of the things I’ve done,” he said with a careless laugh. “I’m fine on my own. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Rodney,” he replied. “ Rodney McDuck.”

I’m John,” said the swan almost shyly. “John Swannerd. Won’t you come out and swim about for a bit, Rodney?”

“Oh, I’d rather not, ”said Rodney. "The sun is much too hot, and I burn quite easily.” Which wasn’t at all true. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to be you, everyone admiring and loving you no matter what you do. You don’t have to do anything.”

“That’s true,” the swan said. “I don’t have to do anything, ever. Children come to the pond everyday with delicious tidbits which they throw into the water for me, and I only have to stretch out my neck and take the food to make them cry out in delight.” He sighed.

“That sounds…boring,” Rodney said. “Don’t you have any dreams or wants of any kind?” Forgetting himself, he drew closer to the water’s edge, eager to hear the unhappy swan’s response.

The swan bent his neck and spoke in a soft, confiding voice. “I visited another pond a few days’ flight from here once. There’s a ring at one end of the pond. They say it’s called the Ring of the Ancestors, and that if you pass through the ring there is a whole new world on the other side. I’m going to travel through the ring and explore there…” But Rodney didn’t hear the rest. He was creeping away through the bulrushes and onto drier ground. For a moment he had almost seemed to have a friend, but this John Swannerd would soon be leaving the pond for a better life, and there was no place for Rodney there.

Rodney walked and walked. The cold grew bitter, the wind blew fiercely and still, day after day he walked on. At night, he slept alone on the edge of any small body of water he could find. Finally one morning it was so cold that his little duck feet were frozen fast into the pond he’d spent the night on, and he was trapped there until an old peasant found him and used his ax to break the ice and free him. He carried the little duck home and set him down gently next to a warm stove. A rooster and a beautiful Persian cat were curled up by the stove also.

“What is this place?” Rodney asked.

“Siberia,” the rooster replied rather haughtily, but then he seemed to take pity on the unfortunate duckling and unbent a little, saying more gently,” I am Teal’c and this cat is called Sam Carter. What is your name, little duckling?”

“Rodney,” he replied, sinking down beside the stove. He was so weary he fell asleep almost as he spoke.

He might have stayed with the peasant in the little cottage for a long time had not the morning brought more trouble into his short life. For well before he had awakened, Teal’c the rooster had fallen into the well, and the cottage’s other occupants were thrown into turmoil. Rodney soon become embroiled in a furious argument with Sam the cat when he was tactless enough to say that he didn’t think Teal’c could possibly have survived the fall, and both Sam and the peasant, who despite being a peasant had the surprising name of General Hammond, were angry at his haste in declaring Teal’c dead, especially when Sam managed to retrieve the well’s bucket and they found the rooster curled up inside it and completely unharmed.

The poor ugly duckling was not much wanted in the cottage after that, and he soon headed off on his travels again. One day, on stopping to rest by the edge of another small pond, he nearly trod on a familiar figure. It was John Swannerd. “Hey, easy there, buddy,” the swan said in his casually charming way. “Where are you in such a hurry to be?”

“Oh, sorry.” Rodney was so unnerved by the sudden appearance of the beautiful swan that he could barely speak. “I’ll just be on my way,” he said, turning about and starting back the way he had come.

But the swan hurried after him, grabbing his wing and spinning him around. “Rodney?” He sounded excited, almost as if he was happy to see the duckling.

“Yes, yes, I’m Rodney,” he admitted. There was nothing else for it; he was well and truly caught.

“Rodney,” John said his name again, said it as if the name itself was a type of swan. “I’ve been searching all over for you.”

“Me?” Rodney asked in surprise. “Why would you be looking for me?”

John pulled him close, spoke into his ear, reminding Rodney of that warm feeling he’d not had before or since their first encounter. “The device that operates the ring of the ancestors is broken,” John said. “You know how to fix things, right? I need you to fix it for me.”

“Oh, right,” Rodney said. He felt a little disappointed at that. “I don’t think…that is…the last time I tried to fix something it didn’t work out so well. I’m not sure that I could fix something like that, eh, something made by the ancestors.”

“Sure you can, Rodney,” John said. “Just come and take a look at it.” He was already pulling Rodney over to a strange little object covered with symbols Rodney couldn’t even read, but John was so convinced that Rodney could help that he had to at least try.

“How long is it going to take?” John asked.

“Really, that is just a ridiculous question,” Rodney snapped as he pulled open a panel he’d just noticed at the bottom of the device. “I never said I could fix the thing at all much less give you a time estimate-”

“Rodney,” John interrupted. He didn’t seem at all offended by Rodney’s outraged rudeness-in fact, he seemed amused. “You have to fix it or we can’t go through the ring together and explore the other side.”

“Together?” Rodney asked in surprise. “You…you want me to go with you?”

“Of course.” John said. “Why do you think I’ve been looking for you all this time? You and me, we’ll go together, right?” For the first time the swan seemed uncertain.

Rodney hadn’t once so much as glanced down to the surface of the pond they were standing by as they spoke. He knew he would see his reflection there beside that of the beautiful bird who had just asked him to go through the ring at his side, chosen him over all the swans and the other birds who would have loved to go with him. But gazing into John’s strangely colored eyes, he saw his reflection anyway. He saw his round blue eyes full of ideas and dreams, his wings grown strong and broad and capable over the many months alone. He saw himself as John saw him, and he didn’t feel ugly anymore.

Looking back down at the panel, he noticed that one of the little crystal things was loose, so he reached down and tightened it. The Ring of the Ancestors came alive with a loud whooshing noise. Some strange watery material shot out of it suddenly, and John bent over him protectively with a wild shout of excitement.

The ring had barely had time to settle back on itself before John was pulling him eagerly toward it. “Wait,” Rodney said. “What’s it like on the other side? Is it a better world there?”

John looked around at the pond and the marshes they were leaving behind, possibly forever. “I don’t know,” he answered as they stepped up to the gate together. “ I don’t know if it’s a better world than this one. But it will be different.”

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From:

bluebrocade.livejournal.com

Haha & Awwww! That was great. I love little Rodney-duckling complaining before he's even out of the egg. :D

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