Young Writers Society

"Oh, good one, Schadel!" Damascus clapped once and smiled, and then looked over at James.

"It's not too bad for me. It feels kind of funny inside when I turn into things, but it doesn't hurt, promise. So! What should I be?"

"Be a baby duck! I like ducks," James suggested.

"Yes!" Engel agreed enthusiastically. "Baby ducks are absolutely adorable! Baby chickens, too, they're like little fluffballs of cuteness with faces that make cute little peeps!"

Damascus smiled wide. He didn't know what ducks or chickens looked like, much less infantile ones, but he had to agree that they sounded adorable.

"Okay! I'd love to!" He chirped. "Only... what color are baby ducks?"

He smiled sheepishly, hoping that the prior description and color would be enough to go off of.

"Yellow! And brown. And they have little wings, and webbed feet, and a beak-" Boris lifted a hand to his face, and put his thumb underneath his fingers, mimicking the shape of a duck's beak.

"-like this!" Boris chimed happily.

Edward crossed his arms. "I don't think telling Damascus what a duck looks like is going to help," he pointed out, still holding William in one hand. "The proportions will be all weird, and he might miss something-"

"I got it!" Schadel said, jumping to her feet. She looked over at Damascus. "I've almost always done human forms before, and a baby duck is really small, but I could show you what it looks like, Damascus!"

Damascus clapped his hands excitedly and delved into vivid duck imaginings, which were then interrupted by Edward's grounded remarks. He looked over at Schadel and smiled, tilting his head just slightly.

"Thank you, Schadel, but I think that since this is my task- er, dare, that would be cheating somehow. But please show me a real duck afterwards! I want to see if I got it right." He screwed his eyes shut tightly at this, picturing his duck as hard as he could.

Instantaneously, his form shrank down an changed drastically. He blinked open his eyes and stared up at Schadel, letting out an excited chirp, as if to ask if he had done it right.

He had morphed himself into a literal ball of yellow and brown speckled fluff, with two pinprick eyes and a fleshy little beak peeking out. Two nubby webby feet stuck at the end of his spherical body, but the most startling feature of his were the fuzzy pair of draconian wings attached to his back.

Edward and Schadel gave out simultaneous cries of alarm and instinctively clung to each other when Damascus took on a form that definitely was not a duck. Both felt incredibly guilty about it afterwards - it wasn't his fault that he didn't really know what a duck was. But Schadel still found Damascus's duck form a little terrifying, and Edward still found it more than a little disturbing.

"Th-That's a nice try, Damascus," Schadel said, trying to keep her terror out of her voice.

"It is," Edward agreed with a hurried nod.

"But ducks don't look exactly like that!" Schadel exclaimed, eager to conclude this. She thought for a moment. She could show Damascus what a duck really looked like by taking on its form like she said she would, but she wasn't sure she could get it that small. Oh well! She'd try her best and then go big if she had to.

She closed her eyes, concentrated for a moment, and then a cute little baby duckling was sitting in her place. "This is what a duckling looks like!" she informed Damascus, being somewhat distracted by the startled cry Edward once again gave when he heard her voice come out of the duckling's beak.

"Awww." Damascus cooed and waddled over to study the duckling Schadel. "It's so cute! I see, so ducks look more human than I thought!"

With this, he inferred that real ducklings, compared to his idea of them, looked very mild and plain.

"I'll try that, then!" He chirped, and then glanced at Schadel one more time before copying the accurate form.

James had to withhold his surprised laughter at Damascus's first guess, and painfully bit his lower lip until Schadel showed Damascus what a duck really looked like, and he switched to that.

"Good job!" he finally said with a little giggle and a clap of his hands.

"Thank you!" Damascus peeped proudly, and stumbled over on his little webbed feet to settle at James'.

"You're the one who wanted a baby duck, James, so you can hold me, if you'd like." He offered sweetly, looking up at his brother.

James's eyes lit up. "Really?" he said, hesitantly reaching down and scooping Damascus up in his hands. He lifted Damascus up and looked down with a smile. He couldn't help but 'aww.' "You're so cute."

Damascus let out a pleased squeak and nuzzled James' thumb with his bill, folding his legs underneath himself so that he could curl into his palm.

Boris scooted behind James to look at little duckling Damascus over his shoulder.
He couldn't have supressed a smile, if he tried.

Now that her duty of showing Damascus what a duck looked like was over, Schadel quickly switched back to the form she had been using last. She hadn't admitted just how much it had hurt; she was good about hiding serious pain like that. Now she could watch on from beside Edward - who was giving her a funny look after the duck incident - as James and Damascus looked really cute together.