Chapter 3: Chapter 3
The second bell never seemed to come. They talked until the algae-orb dimmed itself twice for rest, and still they talked, sitting on the driftwood chairs with their arms stretched across the table between them, hands touching. Donald told her about Duckburg, about his Uncle Scrooge's money bin, about the triplets he occasionally babysat and the nephews' science experiments that had once dissolved his lawn furniture. Reginella told him about the kelp harvests, the trench races her people held each spring, and the great whale-road that passed below the city every autumn, singing.
Somewhere in the small hours, the conversation went quiet, and it stayed quiet in a way that felt full instead of empty.
"Donald," she said. "Look at me."
He looked. The copper dust on her feathers had gone almost gold in the low light.
"I have read a great deal of surface poetry," she said. "The currents bring us books that sink. I know a hundred ways to say what I am about to say, and every one of them is cowardly, so I will say it plainly. I love you."
The words landed on him like warm water. He opened his bill, and nothing came out for a moment.
"I watched you for a year and I told myself it was curiosity," she went on, her voice steady, her hands not steady at all. "It was not. It was love before I had a face to put to it. And tonight I met the face, and it is worse. Much worse." She rose from her chair and came around the table to stand before him. "Marry me, Donald Duck."
"Marry you." He said it as if testing whether the words held weight. "You. Me. Married."
"That is the usual arrangement."
He stood up so fast he knocked the shell cup over. He caught it, set it right, and then forgot it entirely. "Yes. Yes! Of course yes!" He grabbed both her hands and then didn't know what to do with them, so he kissed her instead, quick and hard, then pulled back and kissed her again, slower. "I'll be good at it. I'll be the best consort this kingdom has ever had, I swear on my uncle's money bin. I'll learn all the protocols, and I'll carry your things, and stand behind you on the dais looking supportive, and only faint from nerves twice a week, tops."
Reginella had gone very still.
"Consort," she repeated. "What is a consort?"
Donald blinked. "It's, uh. It's the spouse of a ruler. The one who's married to the queen but doesn't rule. He stands next to her. He attends things. He looks dignified and has no actual power, like a hat with a title." He demonstrated a small, dignified smile and folded his hands. "Like that. See? I've been practicing."
The silence stretched. Somewhere outside the porthole, a luminous fish flickered off and on, off and on.
"You are telling me," Reginella said slowly, "that in your world, a duck can be good enough for a queen to marry, but not good enough to sit beside her."
"Well, when you put it like that it sounds," he began, and stopped, because it did sound like that.
"That is the most backward thing I have ever heard, and I have heard the Advisor's opinions on kelp rationing."
"Most surface kingdoms work that way," Donald said, shrugging. "It's tradition."
"I am not marrying tradition," Reginella said. "I am marrying you." She drew herself up, and the starflowers on her gown flared bright, all of them at once, so that the whole Pearl Chamber filled with white light. "Then hear my word on it, Donald Duck, and know that it is not tradition. You will not be a consort. You will not be a decorative hat. You will be a king."
"A what." The word came out of him flat and small.
"A king. A full-fledged king, crowned beside me, co-ruler of the Realm of the Aqueous Echo. When I speak, they obey me. When you speak, they will obey you the same." Her ocean-deep eyes held his, and there was no doubt in them at all. "The court will bow to you. The guard will take your orders. The Advisor," and here her bill twitched, "will be required by law to take your opinions seriously."
"Reginella, honey, I got kicked out of my house tonight for being too poor to keep. I argued with a boat and lost this morning. I have never ruled anything in my life, except maybe a barbecue, and there were casualties."
"And I have ruled this kingdom alone since before I understood what alone meant," she said. Her voice softened. "I do not need an ornament, Donald. I need a partner. Someone who argues and loses and tries again. Someone who feeds the gulls. Someone whose opinions I can take seriously even when the Advisor says I cannot." She took his hands. "You sat on a crate in the middle of a black ocean and kept breathing because you did not know how to quit. That is what I want on my throne."
Donald looked down at their hands, at the small tide-pool smell of her, at the light still glowing from her gown and washing over them both.
"If I'm a king," he said, his voice rough, "do I get to make one decree? Just one. Immediately."
"Within reason. The court will be furious already."
"Nobody down here is allowed to dump me, steal my car, and take my savings. Ever. That's it. That's the whole law."
Reginella laughed, the bubbling sound, bright enough that the fish outside the porthole flickered in answer. "Passed. Unanimously. I am the other vote, and I vote yes."
"Then okay." He straightened his rumpled sailor collar with his free hand, and something in his chest settled, dense and warm, for the first time since the candle went out. "Okay. King Donald. I can learn to say that without honking."
"You just did honk."
"King Donald," he repeated, slower, and she squeezed his hands and did not laugh this time, because he meant it.