Wan Duk?

[Mads]

Sometime in Ashan

Seven little ducks sat in a row along the uneven ridges of a crumbling, cobblestone wall. They were all clearly ducks, but not one of the little feathered creatures looked the same. The largest of the ducks, the fourth from the left, was almost entirely white save for a single red feather in the middle of its noodle-like head, right between its beady little eyes. The smallest of the ducks, the second from the right, was a mix of greens and yellows with a bright orange crest that looked very much like an explosion frozen right in the middle. The sixth duck from the right was covered in dark, ashen fethers and had an incredibly long neck from with a hooked, needle beak extended out from its bulbous head. The fourth duck from the left was named Apocrypha. The second duck from the left suffered from early onset arthritis and had, roughly, ten or seven pale pink feathers left clinging to its shaggy skinned, average sized body. The duck on the right had no eyes but disconcertingly long legs with little fingers attached to the ends of them that it used to slowly preen its sapphire blue plumage that stopped just below its neck, leaving its drumstick of a head bare. Finally, the duck on the left was just a duck.

"These here ducks," Clinton began, shouldering his shovel that doubled as an axe boomerang in function when he threw it hard enough and far enough. "Are the finest ducks you'll find in anywhere."

"Anywhere?" Marvin asked, a little bit nervous given the prestigious claims. He'd never been in the presence of prestige before. "What about Fendleston?"

"Fendleston's got gooses," Martha corrected him, spitting something dark and putrid from her lips before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. "And Barliesville's got them sheeps and hydrogenated dairy stuffs."

"That's right," Marvin nodded, muttering. "I knew that..."

"Anyway," Clinton turned, his shovel swinging through the air at an alarming speed - but just slow enough but Marvin and Martha were able to duck before it struck them. "One of 'ems an imposter."

Slowly rising back to a standing position, hands still protectively covering his head, Marvin ventured a timid, "Im-imposter?"

"S'like a doll per ganger," sighed Martha, clearly already weary of giving an explanation, even it if was for the first time. "Magic mojo garbage we ain't have no time for."

"And you want me to-" Marvin began, but was interrupted by Clinton's laughter.

"You? No no no." He clapped a hand on Marvin's shoulder. The weight and force of it were more than enough to cause him to stumble. "You're here to keep an eye on him."

"On who?"

"'On who?'" Martha mimicked with a whining, high pitched voice. "Why don't you let Clint finish before you ask any more dumb questions."

Marvin held his tongue and looked down at his muddy boots apologetically. "Yes ma'am."

"His name's-" But Clinton didn't finish. There was a flash of light, a loud scream, and several quiet whispers then Marvin and the ducks were alone. Well, not entirely alone. A man had appeared, and, though Marvin wasn't a gambling man due to his crippling debt and complete lack of self-confidence, he was willing to go out on the proverbial limb and assume that the newcomer was the one he was supposed to be "keeping an eye on".

With a small cough to clear his throat - though more so for a very small burst of flimsy bravery - Marvin stepped forward, the ducks all placidly taking in the scene with about as much interest as a stepfather who'd married rich at his stepdaughter's fifteenth wedding to his cousin's nephew's pet badger. "H-hello, are you here for the... the ducks?"

[Llyr Llywelyn]

Ducks and geeses, sheep and cows, ithecals and lotharros, livestock were the same no matter where anyone went and no one knew that better than Zachary. He’d been tagging beasts of burden and food and otherwise for as long as he’d walked right out of his mother. Zachary had, after all, always been a precocious sort of lad and never could be bothered with something as mundane and time-consuming as having a childhood.

He filed his nails with a whetstone, though the pearl pink tips were sharp and ready to strike. And when he flashed to the next spot on his list, he did not concern himself much with the surroundings. Zachary simply glanced at what it was he needed to tag. He saw the birds and then the other man. He yawned widely, rudely, and then pocketed the whetstone in his brown leather jacket. The rest of his outfit was a simple affair, black slacks and a long-sleeve cotton shirt. He had a few golden chains hanging from around his neck, one of which had a large ruby attached to it.

“Yes and no,” he replied simply. Zachary picked up his satchel-briefcase from the ground and walked over to the ducks. He knelt down and grabbed one by the neck, to start combing its feathers with a thin metal brush. “Ducks, it is then. Where did you get these ducks from? They look as if they’re from noitheso of the Yion Riverfork. Is that correct?”

He glanced at Marvin with eyes of sharp steel, literally, in that they were not fleshy but truly made from metal minerals itself and light reflected off them as it would bounce away from armor. “I don’t have all trial, kid,” he spoke to Marvin. “Get on with it and tell me, then I can move on to the next.”

Zachary let go of the duck, and grabbed the next. It had pretty sapphire feathers, but he didn't care that much. Ducks were all ducks to him anyway. He combed it through, then clicked his tongue in dismissal. "Alright, I've got tags, but they're gonna cost you. How much gold you got anyway?" He eyed the other man suspiciously.

[Mads]

"Uh-" Marvin tried, but the man was just too... much. He was bright and expensive and looked like he hadn't spent a single day in the fat fryers that all children were required to spend at least five thirds of their childhood learning how to dive. He didn't look like he could swim a lick, but he definitely had one of those suave, "I'm going to use my sexuality to get what I want, but I'm also going to do it without being sexual at all because I"m just that good" vibes. He'd heard about people like the metal-eyed man before, usually in the spring.

Ironmen.

Their actual names were something like "Metal Eyed Never Was a Child Too Busy For the World-ites", but it was too long and too specific and most of them didn't like all the negative stereotypes that came with it. The term "Ironmen" came about roughly fifteen hundred years ago when a little girl stubbed her toe on one of the Metal Eyed Never Was a Child Too Busy For the World-ite's desiccated eyeholes and called out, "I've just stubbed my precious little toe on a Metal Eyed Never Was a Child Too Busy For the World-ite!" When the doctor arrived, he was too weary from his examination of a priest who had been storing apples inside of himself to write out the full name, so instead, he'd written "MENWaCTBFtW" when referencing the cause of the child's pain. Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending upon perspective - the doctor's handwriting was so terrible that when it was found several hundred years later during a burial site raiding operation under the guise of a government-funded archaeological dig site, the specialist on hand improperly read "MENWaXTBFtW" and "Metal Humanoid" but thought that "Steel Fella" sounded better and wrote that instead. Several decades later, it was discovered that steel was actually iron, so the document's official translation was altered to "Iron Fella" and remained as such for roughly fourteen more centuries.

At the turning point of the fifth industrial revolution, the term "fella" was found to be extremely derogative towards men, as they were in a war of the sexes with women. Fortunately, it was a one-sided war and women were completely wiped out and needed to be summoned through dimensional doorways hat reached into a universe in where women were like men and men were non-existent. After that demonization of language, the "fella" in "Iron Fella" was replaced with "man", leading to the current day - though technically racially charged - label of Ironman.

And the Ironman with the duck in his hand and a little metal comb in his other hand was definitely not his neighbour's brother's cousin's uncle. "They're from um..." He had no idea. "I have no idea."

Clinton and Martha were gone - presumed dead by the authorities, but Marvin didn't know that yet. They'd always been the ones to handle the money, but he'd never heard the word "gold" before in his life. "Well... we don't have whatever that is specifically. We operate in a specific tier that allots us a certain amount of points that we can either hoard and collect to slowly increase our tier and points or use the points to buy something that's outside of our tier, knocking us out of the tier until we can hoard enough points to get back to where we were. But because of the tier, I can buy food without actually spending anything, which Clinton and Martha say was how it was before and that everything is just more needlessly complicated, but I'm not one to argue because I don't use money anyway.'

He paused. "Are you trying to get me to spend my points on you? I don't think I have enough, but Clinton said that there's an-" his volume fell to just barely a whisper, "-imposter-" back to normal '-among those ducks, and that I'm supposed to keep an eye on you." He frowned. "I don't know how I'm supposed to do that, but my big sister Lousie - who isn't really my sister, but she's always calling Clinton 'daddy' - said that sometimes you can pay for stuff with your booty, but my booty is pretty small."

[Llyr Llywelyn]

Marvin had no idea. That was to be expected. Regular ol’ Marvins rarely had any ideas at all. Zachary might’ve rolled his eyes, if they hadn’t been made of steel – Sure, most people would consider it iron, but he knew better. He knew that unlike the lowly Iron-eyed of their lot, his eyes wouldn’t easily rust and he could see much stronger than any Ironman could. Not that he expected some fleshy little c… child to understand any of that. But Zachary was no element, he was most certainly an alloy.

“So you don’t know where they are from,” muttered Zachary as he combed through the feathers.

The conversation moved on anyway. Zachary raised a dark eyebrow in a sharp arch when he heard the likely story… he plucked one of the feathers from the sapphire duck, then took out a vial. He set the feather in the vial and corked it shut. It wasn’t for anything other than his collection at home. If asked though, he might’ve lied about how it was an important part of any tagging procedure.

“An imposter?” he queried, then looked at the ducks. He glowered at the sapphire duck that promptly started to waddle away from his purview. Zachary stood again, and he brushed off his jacket from any dust or feathers that might’ve gotten on it. He looked over at Marvin with a steely gaze, and then smirked upon mention of booty. “Oh, is it now?”

Zachary paced around Marvin then, his appraising eye fixed on him instead of the ducks. He said, “Mayhaps you’re the imposter duck, ever think of that?” It was a taunt, a tease, a jest and nothing more. He crossed his arms, stood behind Marvin, and appraised a bit closer with a nod of his head. “How many points is that booty then? I’m going to assume it’s at least one tiers worth, if you take care of yourself after all. Do you?”

He pulled out a thin metal implement from the interior pocket of his jacket. It looked like pincers that could inject… or draw… liquids to and from a body. Zachary said, “I’ll tag these ducks for free, and take them off your hands, if you grant me a sample of your… points.”

[Mads]

What if he was the imposter duck?

What if he was the imposter duck?

What if he was the imposter duck?

The other man kept talking, sneering and jeering and leering and carrying on his job, pulling things out of ducks and bags and all the sort of things one would expect from an Ironman, but Marvin stood very, very still and thought very very hard.

He considered what it was the Ironman had said. What if, indeed, it was not one of the ducks that was the imposter duck but he himself? He'd never seen his own face before, just the faces of everyone else. He'd heard about reflections from Michael Terry's niece Becca Rebecca Becky Anne, but she said that reflections only worked for badgers and brain catchers, and he was pretty sure he wasn't either. She was a brain catcher though, which explained how she knew about it.

Brain catchers were the only ones who were legally allow to step outside when the wet fell from the big blue. They went out with big old buckets filled with sap and caught the little chunks of brain that came down. Michael Terry has once said something about brain catchers being born from a speicific sort of Psy Goat that provided when their their external mucus membranes that kept them safe from the wet's Tiny Bads. Tiny Bads were a real bummer and killed people real quick whenever they got to them. Lots of bleeding. Lots of secret revealing. Lots of yelling "Rasmus!"

It wasn't a pretty sight.

But he'd always taken it at face value that, even if he wasn't a badger or a brain catcher, he definitely wasn't a duck. Ducks did duck stuff like prehensile male reproductive organs, gang-style breeding events, and had little tiny teeth inside of their otherwise deceptively benign-looking bills. The most he'd done of any of those things was heat up some butter in a bowl and drink it once. It had been way too greasy to be agreeable with his stomach, and he'd had serious indigestion ever since.

But what if he was a duck, but not just a duck but the imposter duck.

He wasn't sure he could handle it, if that was the truth of the matter. His heart raced, and his pants got tight. His hands clenched into fists and relaxed into regular awkward hands over and over and over again. He didn't really hear what the Ironman said other than "free", "grant", and "you", so, naturally, he immediately agreed. "Sounds good. I need to lie down, I think I'm having a crisis of identity."

[Llyr Llywelyn]

The poor, dear, mild-mannered and daft Marvin had gotten twisted up inside about the casual jest that Zachary had mentioned. This was the problem with people who had childhoods, they always took things much, much, much too seriously. Why was it that the fleshy-eyed people – Brain catchers or not – always had to tense up every time they had an actual thought?

Zachary didn’t know. Nor did he really care to. If he did, then he’d be no better than them anyway. Instead, he appraised the booty of Marvin while he let the other man waver in introspection. Nothing worked better to distract a man than causing internal thought of egoic anxiety for a decent look at the shape of a backside. He held onto the pincer-injector, clasping his fingers around the circular handle, and snapping the steel that mimicked the same of his silver eyes.

Sounds good.
That was it? That was easy. Almost… too easy. Zachary squinted. He didn’t like things to be that easy after all. Oh well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, he supposed… though he wasn’t either of those things. It was a bit of a stupid phrase, now that he thought about it. Could a chooser ever be a beggar? Zachary tapped the pincers against his lower lip, thoughtful about it.

I need to lie down, I think I’m having a crisis of identity.

“Ah, yes, yes,” said Zachary. The steel of his eyes glinted. He walked over and ran a hand over the other man’s shoulder, then down his arm. He leaned in, breathed in sharply, then stabbed the pincers into Marvin’s neck. He slid the needlepoint into the vein, watched as it bulged in resistance before giving way, and then he extracted the shadows from inside. The darkness filled the vial. Marvin went limp against him, but he held on tight.

“There we are,” he murmured. He laid Marvin down on a nearby stone bench. He flicked his fingertip against the glass vial of shadows. “Now, let’s finish with these ducks first, shall we?”

He glanced over the nearly-unconscious man, then turned to attend to his actual profession. Zachary looked between them. The largest with the white and a single red feather, he picked it up by the noodle neck, then flicked his finger against its chest. A small gold light flickered, then disappeared into its breast. One duck, tagged. Six to go.

He tossed the first duck aside without care. Zachary grabbed the smallest next, admired the greens and yellows and the bright orange crest it had. He said, “You’re a sweet little one, aren’t you?” He repeated the tagging motion, a flick of his fingertip against the front of the duck, a little golden light, and then tossed aside to move on to the next duck.

Duck after duck, Zachary made his way through them, tagging them each with his light.

He reached Apocrypha, however, and he paused. Zachary stared down at the duck and placed a hand on his hip. He shook his head, disappointed, and said, “Now, what sort of duck has a name?”

“A duck better than you,” snapped Apocrypha rather rudely at him.

Zachary scoffed. “I don’t think you’re a duck at all. You have no feathers, and you look like a human, you’re just sitting like a duck. How do you expect anyone to believe you like this?”

The woman crossed her arms and scoffed. She said, “I am too a duck.”

“You know, I did hear tell of an imposter among these ducks.” Zachary pointed over to the still slumbering Marvin. “Poor Marvin there couldn’t handle the thought, but I look at you, Miss Apocrypha and I wonder how he wasn’t able to tell such an obvious lady couldn’t ever be a duck at all.”

“Not everyone can see everything,” she muttered. “But I am a duck, I am. I can prove it.”

“Oh?” Zachary gestured in encouragement for her to do so.

She stood and started to waddle about. “See? Don’t I walk like a duck?”

“I suppose so,” said the tagger and appraiser. He nodded in agreement. It was very much a duck-like walk.

Apocrypha cleared her throat, then squawked loudly and wordlessly at him before saying, “And don’t I sound like a duck too?”

“I guess it is true,” murmured Zachary. He scratched the back of his head. “I suppose if you walk like a duck, and talk like a duck… you must be… But you’re the last of the ducks, if it’s not you, who else could it be…”

“Didn’t you say Mr. Marvin there is a duck?” she asked, pointing over at him. “Have you tagged him yet?”

“I haven’t even tagged you yet,” said Zachary. He reached out, flicked his fingertip against the woman’s clavicle, then said, “Now then. Now… what to do with the imposter…” He turned his steely gaze onto Marvin and smiled slightly.

[Alistair]

Mads

Knowledges
N/A

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 15

Zarik

Knowledges
N/A

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 15

Comments: Due to the extreme backlog of threads in need of review, I won't currently be leaving comments in order to save some time. Please PM me if you have any questions and enjoy your rewards!

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