Chapter 1: Chapter 1
The candles were a mistake. Donald stared at the single, stubborn flame refusing to die in the center of the disaster area that was his dinner table. He’d wanted it to be perfect. The tablecloth, a slightly stained white one he’d borrowed from Mrs. Quackfaster and painstakingly ironed, was now adorned with a single dramatic drip of wax. It looked less romantic, more like a crime scene.
He adjusted his sailor collar, feeling the starch itch his neck. “She’s gonna love it,” he muttered to the empty room, his voice a familiar, brittle optimism. “The spaghetti alla carbonara. The candlelight. The… slightly burnt garlic bread.”
He’d cleaned the entire house, which mostly meant shoving all his belongings into a giant pile behind the sofa. The air smelled of lemon polish, sautéed pancetta, and his own creeping desperation.
The doorbell didn’t ring so much as emit a feeble, dying bwong sound.
He scrambled, nearly upending a chair. He smoothed his head feathers, took a deep breath, and put on what he hoped was a suave, welcoming smile. He yanked the door open.
“Daisy! You look… whoa.”
She did. She wore a shimmering lavender dress, gloves up to her elbows, and an expression of serene expectation. She swept in, leaving a cloud of perfume that smelled expensive and faintly dismissive.
“Donald, darling, what is that delicious aroma?” she trilled, gliding past him toward the table.
“It’s, uh, it’s Italian!” he said, puffing his chest out. “I cooked it myself. From a book!”
She paused, her eyes taking in the single candle, the mismatched plates, the pitcher of water with a solitary lemon slice floating in it like a lonely raft. Her smile tightened at the corners. “How… quaint.”
The dinner was a series of small, quiet catastrophes. Donald talked too much, tripping over his own words. Daisy picked at her carbonara, which had congealed into a creamy lump. She mentioned a new boutique opening, a jazz concert she’d heard about, the way a certain someone’s new yacht was simply the talk of Duckburg. Donald nodded, grinning until his beak ached, pouring her more water every time her glass dipped below half-full.
He was just mustering the courage to reach for her hand when a different sound echoed through the house. Not the feeble bwong, but the confident, rolling thunder of a fist on the doorframe.
Donald frowned. “Who in the—”
Before he could finish, the door swung open. Framed in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with effortless, insufferable grace, was Gladstone Gander. His white sweater was spotless, his smile was blinding, and in his hand, he twirled a pair of first-class cruise tickets.
“Evening, cuz,” Gladstone said, his voice a smooth baritone. He didn’t wait for an invitation. He strolled in as if he owned the place, his eyes landing on Daisy. They lit up with a predatory glee. “Daisy. You look transcendent. As always.”
Daisy’s earlier ennui vanished. She sat up straighter, a flush rising to her cheeks. “Gladstone! What a… surprise.”
“Fate, my dear,” Gladstone said, ignoring Donald completely. He held up the tickets. “You know the S.S. Gilded Drake? Sets sail for the Caribbean at midnight. Private balcony, champagne suite, the whole works. My, uh, companion for the trip suddenly came down with a terrible case of… existing. It’s tragic, really. All this luxury, going to waste.”
He let the implication hang in the air, heavy and perfumed.
Donald found his voice, a squeak of outrage. “Hey! Wait just a minute! We’re in the middle of dinner! Get out!”
Gladstone finally looked at him, a slow, patronizing turn of the head. “Donald. Still here? I figured you’d be busy with… whatever it is you do.” He turned back to Daisy, his gaze intensifying. “The world is full of beauty, Daisy. Real beauty. Not,” he gestured vaguely at the candlelit table, “imitations. Don’t you deserve the real thing?”
Donald stood up, his chair screeching backwards. “Daisy, don’t listen to him! He’s just— he’s got luck, that’s all! I made you this dinner! I planned this evening!”
Daisy looked from Donald’s reddening, pleading face to Gladstone’s cool, offered tickets. Her eyes settled on the tickets. A slow, calculated smile spread across her beak. She stood up, smoothing her lavender dress.
“You’re right, Gladstone,” she said, her voice sweet and final. “A girl does deserve the real thing.”
“Daisy?!” Donald’s voice cracked.
She walked over to Gladstone, linking her arm through his. Then she turned back to Donald. All pretense of sweetness evaporated. “Oh, don’t look so pathetic, Donald. A candle and some gloopy pasta? This isn’t romance. It’s… sad.” She sighed, as if burdened by his very existence. “We’re through. Obviously.”
The world narrowed to a pinprick of pain in Donald’s chest. Then it exploded.
“YOU CAN’T! WE’RE— HE’S JUST— I HATE YOU!” he screamed, the words tearing out of him in a raw, honking shriek. He took a wild, stumbling step forward, fists clenched.
What happened next was a blur of lavender and violence.
Daisy moved with a shocking, practiced efficiency. She dropped Gladstone’s arm, stepped forward, and drove a sharp, gloved fist into Donald’s stomach. The air left him in a wounded ooof. As he doubled over, her knee came up, connecting with his chin with a sickening crack. He reeled backwards, seeing stars. A open-handed slap across his beak snapped his head to the side. He crumpled to the floor, a heap of rumpled sailor suit and shattered pride.
From the ground, he watched their feet. Gladstone’s pristine white loafers. Daisy’s delicate lavender heels. They didn’t even pause.
“My place, then to the docks?” Gladstone’s voice floated above him.
“Perfect,” Daisy replied.
The door closed with a soft, definitive click.
Silence. The kind that pressed down on your ears after a bomb goes off. The single candle flame guttered, sending grotesque, dancing shadows over the ruined dinner. A slow trickle of something warm and wet dripped from his beak onto the floorboards. He touched it. Blood.
He didn’t know how long he lay there. The pain was a distant throb compared to the hollow, howling vacancy inside him. Eventually, he pushed himself up. Every movement hurt. He stood on shaky legs, looked at the table—the two plates, one barely touched—and felt a surge of nauseating fury.
He swept his arm across the tablecloth. Plates, glasses, the candle, the pitiful lemon slice—everything crashed to the floor in a cacophony of breaking crockery and splashing water. The candle died with a hiss.
He stood in the dark, breathing in the smell of broken dreams and carbonara. The hollow feeling was hardening into something else, something dense and cold in his gut. He didn’t cry. He just started cleaning, moving with a mechanical, jerky rhythm. Each piece of shattered plate he picked up felt like a piece of himself.
He was on his knees, sweeping fragments into a dustpan, when the front door opened again.
Light from the hallway silhouetted her. Daisy. She stepped inside, her heels clicking on the hardwood with a sound that was now all business.
“Forget something?” Donald asked, his voice a dry rasp. He didn’t look up.
“As a matter of fact, I did.” She walked past him, into the small living room. He heard the distinct squeak of the loose floorboard under the rug, the one he’d been meaning to fix. She knew exactly where it was. He heard the grating scrape of metal, then the soft thump of his old tackle box hitting the floor.
He stood up slowly. “What are you doing?”
Daisy emerged holding the small, rusty strongbox he kept hidden there. His “emergency” fund. Three years of lawn-mowing, dog-walking, and miserly saving. It wasn’t fortune, but it was his.
“You owe me, Donald,” she said flatly, prying at the latch with a fingernail.
“Owe you? Owe you for what?!”
“For my time. For the profound disappointment. For the sheer audacity of thinking this,” she gestured around the dark, messy cottage, “was enough for someone like me.” The latch gave way. She peered inside at the modest stack of bills and let out a short, derisive laugh. “It’ll do. For a start.”
“Give that back!” He lunged for it.
She was faster. She sidestepped, and in one fluid motion, brought her sharp heel down on his foot. He yelped, hopping backwards. Before he could recover, she snatched a heavy ceramic vase from the side table—a gift from Uncle Scrooge, ugly as sin—and held it like a club.
“Try it,” she whispered, and her eyes were utterly void of the warmth he’d once imagined there. “Just try. I will finish what I started earlier.”
He believed her. The throbbing in his jaw and gut confirmed it. He stood, paralyzed, as she tucked the strongbox under her arm.
“The keys to the car,” she said, holding out her free hand.
“My… my 313? No. Daisy, no, you can’t—”
“The keys. Now. Or I start breaking windows. Starting with that stupid porthole one you’re so proud of.”
Trembling, defeated, he fished the keys from his pocket. They jangled in his hand. She snatched them, the metal cold against her glove.
“And the house,” she said, looking around with a landlord’s assessing gaze. “I’m done with my old place. The lease is up. I want this one. It’s quaint. It’ll do while I’m between residences. You will leave. Tonight.”
The absurdity of it broke through his shock. “You’re kicking me out? Of my own house?”
“You’re leaving,” she corrected. “There’s a difference. It’s for the best, Donald. You need to… get away. Find yourself. Or don’t. Frankly, I don’t care.” She walked to the door, pausing on the threshold. “I’ll be back with Gladstone in an hour. If you’re still here, we’ll throw you out. And we won’t be gentle.”
The door closed, softer this time. The sound of his own car starting—that sputtering, coughing ignition he knew so well—echoed from the driveway. The headlights swept across the window, and then she was gone, taking every tangible piece of his life with her.
He didn’t pack. There was nothing to pack that felt like his anymore. He just stood there, until the silence became a scream. Then he moved.
He stumbled out the back, through the scraggly yard that sloped down to the dock. His uncle’s old fishing dinghy, the S.S. Luckless, bobbed in the dark water, patched and repainted so many times it was more sealant than wood. It was the one thing she hadn’t thought to take, probably because it was worth less than the strongbox she’d stolen.
He untied the lines with numb fingers, pushed off, and yanked the starter cord on the outboard motor. It puttered to life on the third pull, a pathetic, sputtering sound that matched his soul. He didn’t have a destination. He just pointed the bow away from the shore, away from the glow of Duckburg, and opened the throttle.
The night air was cool and salty. The black water slipped past the hull. He ran until the shorelights were dim pinpricks, until the only light came from the weak, buzzing bulb on the dinghy’s pole. He cut the engine. The sudden silence was vast, enveloping. He sat in the dark, on a cold plastic crate, and finally let the shuddering sobs come. They were ugly, honking things lost in the immensity of the sea.
He must have dozed off, jerking awake to a different motion. The boat was no longer bobbing gently. It was gliding, with a steady, purposeful pull. He looked over the side. The water seemed darker, swifter. He’d drifted into a current, one of the strong, cold rivers that ran through the warmer coastal sea. It had him now.
He scrambled for the motor, pulling the cord again and again. It coughed, sputtered a cloud of blue smoke, and died. He flooded it. The current was stronger, tugging the little boat like a leaf downstream. Panic, his old familiar enemy, closed its fist around his throat. He pulled the cord until his shoulder burned. Nothing.
Thunk.
A soft, wet sound from beneath his feet.
He looked down. A dark, spreading stain was seeping up between the floorboards near the stern. Not just water, but a steady, invasive trickle. He knelt, poking at the rotten wood. A piece gave way, and the trickle became a stream. The patch there, one he’d made with epoxy and a soup can lid, had simply fallen off.
He cursed, ripping off his shirt, jamming it into the hole. The fabric bloomed dark, soaked through in seconds. He pressed his hands against it, but the pressure from outside was too great. Water gushed around his fingers. It was cold, shockingly so.
The boat was lower in the water now, the current pulling it along with a heavier, more solemn gait. The buzzing light on the pole flickered. The water was at his ankles, then his calves. He bailed with his hands, then with the crate, a frantic, useless rhythm against the inevitable.
The S.S. Luckless gave a long, tired groan. The water reached his waist. The light flickered once more and went out, plunging him into utter blackness. There was only the sound of the hungry water pouring in, the suck of the current, and the vast, star-dusted sky above, indifferent and beautiful.
The boat settled, then slipped beneath the surface. It didn’t go down with drama, just a final gulp of air and a swirl of bubbles. He was left treading in the sudden, shocking cold of the open sea, the last bubbles from his life popping around him, the lights of home a forgotten myth on the horizon.
The cold was a knife. It sliced through his feathers, his skin, his bones, until the marrow itself ached with a deep, shivering agony. Each gasp of air was a victory, each plunge beneath a black wave a silent, salty promise of an end. He stopped thinking about Daisy, about Gladstone, about the house. There was only the next breath, and the next, and the leaden weight of his own body begging him to stop.
The stars blurred above him, smeared by the sting of saltwater and exhaustion. This is it, a calm, detached part of his mind observed. You idiot. You let a dame in a lavender dress drown you.
Something brushed his leg.
He jerked, a final spark of adrenaline firing through his system. A piece of debris? Seaweed? It felt firm, deliberate. Then a hand, webbed and strong, closed around his ankle.
He didn’t even have the breath to scream. He was pulled under.
The surface world vanished into a roar of muted silence. He flailed, eyes wide against the burning salt, expecting the jaws of some monstrous fish. But what he saw were not predators. They were shapes, sleek and streamlined, moving with a grace that mocked his own frantic thrashing. Duck shapes. But these were no ordinary ducks. Their feathers held iridescent sheens—deep blues like twilight, silvers like fish scales—and they wore simple harnesses of woven kelp and polished shell. Their eyes, large and luminous, regarded him not with menace, but with a solemn curiosity.
One, a larger duck with a scar across his bill, gestured with a sharp, fluid motion. Another duck, smaller and quicker, swam up and placed a smooth, opaque seaweed pod over Donald’s beak and bill. He fought it for a second until, with a sudden, shocking clarity, he drew a breath. Not water, but rich, cool air. A trapped bubble of atmosphere. Panic gave way to a stunned, heaving gratitude.
They moved. Holding him by his arms, they propelled themselves downward with powerful kicks. The pressure built in his ears, but the world around him began to lighten. Not from above, but from within. Bioluminescent fungi clung to towering rock spires, casting everything in a soft, blue-green glow. Schools of glittering fish parted for their procession like living curtains. They descended through a canyon of living coral, structures so vast and intricate they made the buildings of Duckburg look like mud pies.
Donald’s mind, numb with cold and shock, could only manage simple, looping thoughts. Underwater. Ducks. Breathing seaweed.
They ascended toward a brilliant cluster of light at the peak of a colossal submerged mountain. As they drew closer, the light resolved into architecture. It was a palace, but unlike any he had ever imagined. It appeared grown, not built—sweeping arches of fused coral, walls inlaid with mother-of-pearl that shimmered with captured moonlight from a surface he could no longer see. Gardens of waving anemones and spiraling kelp forests flanked pathways paved with smoothed black stone.
They breached an invisible barrier at the palace entrance—a shimmering film of tension that shed the water from their bodies like rolling off glass. Donald stumbled onto dry, polished stone, the seaweed pod falling from his face. He collapsed onto his hands and knees, coughing, saltwater pooling beneath him on the exquisite floor. He was in a grand, air-filled atrium. The water formed a rippling, ceiling-high wall behind him, held back by forces he couldn't comprehend.
"Rise, surface-dweller."
The voice was melodic, yet carried a quiet authority. Donald looked up, water dripping from his bill.
She stood on a dais of iridescent abalone shell. Queen Reginella was young, her feathers the color of sunlit sand with a delicate dusting of copper at the tips. She wore a gown of woven seagrass and living, tiny starflowers that bloomed across the bodice. Her eyes were the color of the deep ocean, wide and expressive, and they were fixed on him with an intensity that was both regal and profoundly, unbearably sympathetic.
She descended the steps, her movements a soft rustle. Her court, a dozen or so elegantly-attired ducks, watched silently.
"You are in the Realm of the Aqueous Echo," she said, stopping before him. "What is your name?"
"D-Donald Duck, your, uh…" he stammered, unsure how to address her. Majesty? Highness? His voice was a ragged croak.
He managed a weak, "Your Majesty, I guess?" before a violent shiver racked his frame. Her gaze, intense and ocean-deep, swept over his dripping sailor suit, a garment of crude, surface-world canvas utterly alien in her gleaming court.