A Quiet Adventure [FINISHED]

[Harpsdesire]

Although the rabbits in this story seems less overtly vicious than usually portrayed, they were apparently no less evil. What a dreadful thing to do for a little money... but, she reasoned, Cards have done much worse for much less. It seemed corruption and moral bankruptcy was not species-specific. Dania frowned. Poor Cornelius. She knew what it was like to be bound, a captive to other people's ideals and purposes.

Dania glanced at the chest and it's golden contents with sudden disgust as she guessed the direction this story was headed. A Jack Rabbit's ill-gotten money! The tale made the cave and treasure no less fascinating, but certainly made her less inclined to want the gold (tainted with cruelty!) for herself.

She listened to the story, growing slightly uncomfortable when it came to the part about the Cat Queen and her incurable plague. That sounded like... lowlanders. Ugh. Dania had great sympathy for that realm, but that didn't mean it's inhabitants weren't utterly filthy and repulsive. It seemed a harsh fate, even for mistreating a unicorn. These old stories fairy tales were nearly all barbaric. She grudgingly admitted that was probably why children, including her younger self, liked them so much.

She listened to the rest of the Duck's story without comment, but she couldn't keep her lips from turning up in a smile at the thought of Lyra and Cornelius's eventual triumph. "Blessed gold?" Dania breathed. That made up for any residual evil left over from it's origin, many times over. Assuming the story was true. It probably wasn't, Dania reminded herself firmly. Rabbits, cats and things-- such nonsense. The Duck must be a little mad to believe in all that. Why, all this crazy story was missing were dragons and Jokers! He clearly enjoyed indulging in the kind of eccentricity that only older and wealthier cards could get away with. It couldn't be truth-- it just couldn't!

Yet... the treasure chest was there, real and solid as she was. The skeleton, too... It was clearly Canine, and it would hardly be a stretch to say those teeth looked... well, wolflike. The marks on the walls even bore out the story, and yet she couldn't help but wonder for just a moment if this was a very expensive practical joke by a bored old Duck.

But far be it from Dania to accuse a virtual stranger of such a thing. Even in the very likely case there was no truth to the tale, a small share of that treasure could be enough to make a big difference in her life. Blessed indeed! Some new furniture for the bookshop, trinkets for mother, or, dare she even hope... tuition for a real Esterberry education-! That was blessing enough.

"Graeme, you don't really believe all that, do you?" She asked tentatively, half expecting him to burst out laughing, teasing her for -almost- buying into such nonsense.

[Lucca]

The expected reaction...doubt, disbelief...but some lingering wonder, an almost longing that such fairy tales -were- true...it was no less than he had expected from the obviously intelligent young Card, and Graeme felt oddly proud, as if he'd in some way contributed to Dania's spirit and intellect, or had judgement over it. His response was simply an enigmatic smile, as he clutched his cane and pushed himself up, joints cracking a bit at sitting for so long.

The Duck eagerly turned toward the chest, and moved towards it, gesturing absently for his companion to follow. The chest was not yet so rotted as to be easily broken into, and so that meant finding the key. But he knew precisely where it would be, and he turned to the skeleton beside the chest and...

A cry of dismay tore itself out of his throat, and Graeme got down on his knees, pushing his spectacles up as he hurriedly searched the ground, fingers fumbling uselessly over cold, wet, bare stone. "Where is it? It must be here!" He seized the chest, fearing it had all been in vain, that he wasn't as he had thought, the first to discover this place, but it took an effort to lift it, showing that it was still very much full. "So where is the key?" he angrily mumbled aloud, dropping the chest once more. There was a frayed and broken string around the skeleton's neck, and Graeme knew it must once have held it...it could not have gone far! It had to be here somewhere! He refused to accept coming this close and yet walking away empty-handed!

[Harpsdesire]

Dania smiled back, uncertainly, as she wasn't sure what his unreadable expression indicated. Did he believe the tales, or didn't he? She couldn't be sure. Maybe Graeme was embarrassed to admit his superstitious nature, or maybe he just didn't didn't want to ruin the shimmering moment at the end of the tale when the fantastic seemed so incredibly possible. At least he hadn't laughed at her.

The young rat was glad to rise from the rather chilling surface of the rock. It had probably never been warmed by the sun, and held the kind of cold that, while not intense, seeped achingly into her bones.

She was more than a little shaken to see Graeme approach the skeleton and inspect it closely. She stayed behind him, rather unwilling to get close to the wolf's remains, yet very interested in the next phase of the adventure. Her smallish store of courage had already been mostly exhausted by the day's events, but her curiosity was boundless.

Without knowing it, she had been concentrating deeply on Graeme's actions, trying to see what he was looking for from a 'safe' distance, so his unhappy cry startled her a little. For a frightening moment she thought he had been hurt by one of the booby traps she had previously imagined would be in such a place. She relaxed when the reason for his outburst was made clear. No Key. Well, it could have been a whole lot worse, considering they dealing with a skeleton, here. "If we can't find it, we could drag the chest out and get a locksmith." She suggested timidly.

It seemed the pile of Canine bones was well and truly dead, harmless, so she took a few nervous steps closer. She could at least look like she was helping if she searched the nooks and crevices of the rock below and around the skeleton. Some of the holes were too dark to see into, but she didn't dare stick a paw in without first using the lantern to check for spiders or any other nasty surprises.

[Lucca]

Graeme continued his frantic search, getting more and more frustrated, swinging the lantern around wildly as he shone light into every dark crevice, and, of course, muttering a steady stream of Highlands curses. Webbed feet smacked onto the wet rock with increasing force, feathered hands poked wherever the lantern couldn't quite reach, heedless of spiders or anything else (Graeme knew the species of dangerous spiders that lived in Avington, and this was habitat for none of them). At once point, he was in such a rush that he managed to slice his thumb on a sharp rock, and he yanked it toward himself with a hissed, "Hills!"

It was then that he caught a flash of purple, and blinked shining golden eyes. He had...almost forgotten that Dania was there, as much as he was ashamed to admit it. He turned towards her, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket (which had his company logo stitched on it in blue thread) and pressing it to his cut. "Ah, you're right, Dania. However, it would take quite a bit of work to get the chest that far up, and it would really be much simpler if we could find that damned key now."

He frowned, glancing down at his cut, and gently removing the cloth to look at it. Graeme had to grimace at how dirty his hand was, and he quickly moved to the underground river to wash it off. Dipping his thumb in the ice-cold, clear water, his expression relaxed, looking thoughtful. Since, clearly, no one would come, take the key, and leave without opening the box...it had to be here somewhere, unless a wild animal had run off with it. Unlikely. But then, where could it?...he brought his hand out of the water, now numb from the cold, and glanced to see that the cut had stopped bleeding. Perfect. He went to wrap it up when...he stopped. Blinked. Turned back to stare at the stream. And laughed.

"Of course, it's so obvious! How did I not see it before? If the coin got into the water..." He turned to gesture eagerly at the Rat. "Dania, bring the lantern over here, if you please!" He shifted, getting down on his knees to crouch near the water, leaning over to look into it, wings fluttering with energy and tail wiggling in excitement.

[Harpsdesire]

((.... I was 99% sure that his thumb was going to be completely healed by the holy unicorn-water. o.0 ))

The rat was quite disconcerted by Graeme's intensity of emotion (not to mention his total lack of concern about the spiders that were almost certainly in those cracks). She seemed to shrink down upon herself a little, as if she expected his anger to be redirected at her if she so much as took up space. It was a childish, instinctive reaction that would have embarrassed her if she hadn't been too busy trying to stay out of the Duck's way to consider her humiliatingly submissive behavior. Although she wouldn't say she was exactly glad when the frantic Highlander hurt himself, Dania couldn't help but be pleased that the minor injury sent him to the stream, and therefore further away from her.

She calmed visibly when Graeme's angry cursing and muttering quieted, and relaxed into a more normal posture. He was laughing. Maybe he found the key? A clue at least, for his golden eyes were no longer full of frustration. When he spoke to her, Dania brought the lantern forward.

When she saw Graeme peering into the water, Dania quickly realized what must have happened. At some point between the present time and the long-ago hiding of the treasure, the clear little stream had probably swollen in a time of heavy rains. It had reached the rock the supported the skeleton and washed away the key. That single golden coin that Graeme had found in the pool above had likely been washed there in the same flood, and probably never came from the treasure chest at all-- before coming to rest in the muddy bottom of the pool it had been in the wolf's pocket. Now it was in her own coin purse. She felt a slight chill go up her back at the thought, half horror, half fascination.

She forced herself to examine the skeleton more closely. It was strangely well preserved for its age, but many of the smaller bones were missing: toes, claws... they, too, had once been washed downstream.

She trotted eagerly to the edge of the water and leaned over, the lantern swinging slightly from it's handle as she held it in her mouth. It sent silver and golden flecks of light dancing across the clear, shallow water.

"You think the key went downstream?" Dania asked, her voice a bit muffled by the lantern handle. She wished she could hold it in one paw, but trying to balance on two legs on the slippery edge of the stream seemed like a bad idea. She resolved the problem by setting the light carefully on a flattish rock nearby.

[Lucca]

((....LOL would you believe that didn't occur to me? XD HMMMMMM. I can work with this.))

Graeme studied the water, eyes narrowed as he was sure he would be able to catch the glint of the lantern light (helpfully provided by Dania) reflecting off the metal of the key. It absolutely had to be here somewhere; Graeme refused to give up when they'd come this far. A McDuck saw his plans through to the end, no matter how high the odds were stacked! He did wish he had that really handy little device with him his Corvie associate had gifted him once...it had been able to detect metal, such as that of which the key was undoubtedly composed of, even when it was buried under several feet of earth.

"I can't be sure," the Duck mumbled, turning his head a little so his sharp gaze could rove over the next area of the worn stream bed. "Let us hope it hasn't gone too far, or there may be more swimming involved." He didn't sound entirely too unhappy with the prospect, though here he'd need the control that would necessitate staying in Biped form. "Ah, wait!..." He squinted at a spot where two rocks stood on the stream bed, and between them...he moved a bit closer to the spot, one hand fumbling to grab the lantern and pull it closer.

Curiously, Dania might notice that this was the hand that was cut. But the cut looked to be healed over...as if the injury had been received several days ago instead of no more than a minute previously. Perhaps the water did have some magical qualities after all...

[Harpsdesire]

Dania, too, scanned the smooth bottom of the stream. It was more or less carved out of solid stone, with little sand or debris on the bottom, so the key shouldn't see too hard to spot on the flat surface. Since she didn't see it, Dania figured it must be further down, or trapped beneath the edge of one of the large smooth stones at punctuated the underground stream here and there, glistening wetly where they poked above the surface of the water.

"From the size of the lock on that chest, it's probably too heavy to have washed terribly far. Maybe under one of these rocks." It was looking like she'd have to get back into the icy water and feel around for it. A pity, since her short coat had just begun to feel comfortably dry again. She was steeling herself for the chilly touch of the water (always a shock, even when one expected it), when she happened to notice a curious thing. The hand Graeme reached toward the lantern was not only no longer bleeding, it looked as if the cut had closed itself almost entirely. She gasped. "Graeme, your hand!"

It was, of course, possible that one of the Duck's own innate magic abilities accounted for the fast healing, but it just seemed to fit too well with the story he just finished telling. Maybe there really was something in the water. Something add occurred to her. The rat looked down at her own paws curiously, and saw, with astonishment, that all the inevitable tiny abrasions she had acquired while digging bare-pawed into the tunnel were gone, as if they had never been. As seemed, now that she looked back on it, that the tiny nagging sting of scraped skin had gone numb in the frigid water as she passed through the stream, and the pain had not returned, as one would expected it to, when she warmed.

Something quietly, utterly fantastic had happened, a very tiny miracle, and she hadn't even noticed. She stared at the water in some combination of awe and skepticism. 'I-I can't believe it!" Dania said, but her shining eyes said that she had quite a great capacity for belief, indeed.

[Lucca]

Graeme nodded in response to Dania's assertion, as it was just what he himself had been thinking: the key wasn't far. Couldn't be far. Of course, even if it were, the Duck would still spend as long as it took to look for the thing. After all, he didn't have anywhere he absolutely had to be until next Tuesday's board meeting; his company and his household were both in competent paws, hands, and wings as always. But he had a funny feeling this was the end of their search, right here, and...

Graeme started at Dania's sudden exclamation, dropping the lantern entirely and causing the light to flicker (but not, luckily, go out, as he brought his hand up to his face in alarm). "What about me hand?" He quite expected to see something terrible, or at the very least something odd, so when his hand looked much the same as it always had, soft white unbroken feathers, he scowled a bit. "Ah have no idea what you're going on about but...but..."

Wait. His hand looked perfectly normal. Unmarked. But hadn't it been cut just moments before? Hadn't he dipped it in the water to wash the blood off? His expression changed to one of quiet wonder as he turned the appendage this way and that, as if he'd never seen it before. Slowly, a smile spread across his bill, and he let out a triumphant bark of a laugh and turned to grin at Dania.

"There! See? Ah told ye there was more tae the world than most are willin' ta admit!" Imagine that...the water really was blessed. Golden eyes, gleaming in the darkness, turned toward the river...so deceptively normal-looking that many Cards had probably dipped into or even drank from the pool above and never known it had special properties.

[Harpsdesire]

Dania grinned back, delighted and bemused by the discovery. So at least one thing about the story was true, improbable as it seemed. How strange this day was turning out to be, how strange and wonderful. How could it be that both of them had passed through the water without being aware of the distinctive tingle that nearly always accompanied magical properties?

That was certainly mysterious, and it suggested to Dania (dare she think it?), that a Unicorn really had blessed the spring from which this water flowed, and that unicorn magic was somehow different, or at least, felt different. She would have to see what she could find on the subject in the library. Not much, she suspected, as the library in her hometown was rather small. Perhaps a trip to the Capital Library was in order. She'd have to wait until her father sent her there on errands for the bookstore, since she was quite sure he wouldn't approve of her making the trip for the frivolous purpose of looking for a book on unicorns. She would wait, but her hunger to learn more about this magic would not be denied forever.

The spell must have been inconceivably powerful to persist for so many years, affecting probably millions of gallons of water over the course of time. This water... surely it was valuable, too. She almost said as much to Graeme, then thought better of it. Gentleman though he was, he was also a business man. It would be a tragedy to see this place of history, beauty and wonder despoiled with a bottling plant or turned to a spa and tourist trap.

Of course, he would think of the idea himself before long, but Dania just didn't want to be even slightly responsible for such a thing. Maybe if they got the treasure he would be satisfied with that, and the cave could return to the lonely silence it had enjoyed for many years before their arrival.

"This is a special place. It does seem there's magic here." She agreed softly, looking around once more at the painted walls and the fanciful growths of rock on the ceiling high above. But was this magic to be kept secret, hidden and safe, to be capitalized on for profit, to be freely shared with cards in need of healing? The story Graeme had told her, if it was true, made it quite clear that using Cornelius and his powers to gain wealth did not result in a happy ending. She hoped the gold-loving Duck would understand that.

Dania sighed as she returned her mind to searching for the key, temporarily dismissing this dilemma from her mind.

[Lucca]

True to form, right on the heels of McDuck's amazing discovery of what the water could do came the persistent thought: imagine how much it would be worth! Why, there could be millions of dollars in it...in the promise of such amazing, magical healing at this spring! There was no telling if the water would retain its properties if removed from this spot, so of course what he would actually sell would be maps to the place, but imagine how many would come, from far and near, Corvies to study it and all the sick and weak of the world to take of its balm...why, Lowlanders would flock by the millions to see if they could improve their wretched station and...

And...

Graeme paused in his thoughts, staring at the water. Sacred. Blessed. Untouched by time. He suddenly realized he was being ungrateful, just like the Jack Rabbit in the story had been, and he lowered his head a bit. This water wasn't his. Just because he had stumbled upon such an amazing treasure...it didn't make it right for him to try and sell it. Not all treasures could be sold, at any rate, nor should they be.

"Ah will get me gold, and that shall be enough," he told himself firmly, ignoring the part of him that desired to have more, and with that he pushed his lantern aside and began to unbutton and remove his coat. Setting it aside, he looked once more at the spot he thought the key must be before wading into the water toward the rock, glad that his insulating feathers protected him from the icy temperature of the underground stream.