Return to The Millinery home page
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at https://archiveofourown.org/works/17039789.
Fandom: The Adventure Zone: Amnesty
Rating: General audiences.
No warnings.
Published 2018-12-17 for the Yuletide exchange.
Words: 3,400
Aubrey shows up at Duck’s apartment unannounced around one in the afternoon. He answers the door wearing an apron printed with a cartoon of a dog wearing a Park Service hat over the words BARK RANGER.
“Oh. Hey, Aubrey.”
She stares at his chest. “You don’t have a dog, do you?”
“No.”
“And you work for the forest service, so you’re not actually a park ranger.”
“It was a gift from my sister.”
“Why?”
“Apparently I’m hard to shop for. And I didn’t have an apron before, so. Is everything all right? I thought you were taking the day off from Pine Guard stuff.”
“I am, but then I remembered how the Pine Guard is basically the only reason I ever came here, so there’s nowhere in Kepler that really feels away from Pine Guard business. But especially Amnesty Lodge. Which is where I live. And then I thought, Duck is a mostly normal person who’s from here, and he doesn’t work on Tuesdays, maybe his house will seem like a normal house.”
“It’s just an apartment.”
“Obviously I know that, since I’m standing in your door right now. And you still haven’t asked me in. Do you have company or something? I can go if you want.”
“Oh.” He stands back and opens the door wider. “Sorry. Come on in.”
She does. It’s a little chilly outside, apparently not cold enough for her to wear a coat over her magic vest but enough that she’s got a long scarf wrapped around her neck. She unwinds it as she comes through the door, and a fine sand falls out of the folds onto the floor. She frowns down at it. “Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. How’d you get all sandy?”
“I’m not really sure.” She runs an experimental hand through her hair, inspects her fingers, shakes her head a little and scratches at her scalp. “Huh. I washed my hair this morning, I promise.”
“Wasn’t gonna make you promise that. Can I get you a Coke or something? I’m in the middle of making soup but you can…help, if you want.”
“Do you actually want me to help?”
“Honestly? No. I’m kinda particular about that stuff.”
“Thank you for being honest with me, and I will have a Coke, thank you.”
It turns out he only has Diet Rite. She makes a face at it, but not a disgusted face, more of a “well this is new” kind of face. Duck goes back to chopping bell peppers and Aubrey wanders out into the living room, where she investigates the stuff on his walls and calls questions back into the kitchen. Duck can’t really hear what she’s saying, but when he calls back “What?” she just says, “Never mind,” and continues. At some point she must come back into the kitchen, because just after Duck finishes sautéeing his vegetables and dumps them into the stock pot he hears her say, “Duck, are you afraid of angels?”
Duck turns around from the stove and stares at Aubrey. He was half expecting that she would be doing one of her magic fidgets, like lighting a flame and putting it out over and over, or tossing it from one hand to another. But she’s just sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the window.
“Why would you ask that, Aubrey? Is someone, ah—why are you thinking about angels?”
“Well.” She’s sitting criss-cross applesauce on the wooden chair, and as she thinks about his question she braces her elbows on the table and puts her chin in her hands so she’s all folded up. “I was just thinking about some things, and I thought about how in a lot of stories when people see angels the angel has to shout at them not to be afraid. And they’re actually super scary. Did you know that in the book of Ezekiel the angels have, like, four faces and four wings and they just swoop around in a huge row while Ezekiel is standing there wondering what the fuck is happening to him?”
“I guess I have heard something a little like that,” Duck says, slowly.
“It just makes me think about the universe.”
Duck scratches his head. “Is this a part of your act? Are you rehearsing on me or something?”
“No.” She takes a deep breath. “I guess I’m just thinking about, I dunno, reality? I started thinking about how weird it is that we can go to Sylvain, which is a whole different planet that’s orbiting a different sun out there somewhere, and then about how all these legendary creatures are just my housemates now, and it’s like—Dani is a vampire AND she’s technically an alien AND she’s this girl I like to hang out with, and I like her SO MUCH, Duck, and also that makes me feel like I’m a character in Twilight.”
Duck thinks he should probably say something supportive here. “That’s all right, Aubrey.”
“I’m not done yet. What I mean is, all these things are real and I think I ought to be afraid of them, but I never have before, but that was because I didn’t think they were real. I was never scared of vampires but I never thought I was going to meet any. So now it’s like I’m going through all the backlog of things I wasn’t scared of, and I’m wondering if they’re real too, and if they are then how should I feel about that, and it got me thinking about the freaky four-headed angels. And the thing is I really really want to touch that crystal in Sylvain but I’m kinda scared that if I do, a lion-headed four-winged apparition is going to show up and cut me in half with a flaming sword.”
Duck blinks slowly. “All right. Is this—was that the part that you wanted to say, or is there more?”
She looks down at her hands and snaps her fingers to make a little flame. “That’s not really what I was trying to say but that’s it for now, I think.”
“Okay.” He pauses: that doesn’t seem like enough of a response. “Well, I mean. You know about my friend Minerva?”
She frowns. “The person you can’t really explain to us about, who gave you your sword and no one else gets to see her?”
“That’s the one.” He rubs the back of his neck, finds some steam condensing there, and realizes he’s left the soup unattended, so he takes the excuse and turns around to stir it. He raises his voice so he can keep talking while Aubrey is behind him. “She’s on another planet too, I’m pretty sure. Another place, anyway. And she glows—she’s just an emanation of light, like a hologram but more, uh. Monochromatic. The first time I saw her she scared the bejesus out of me. And then I was like, oh, this is just a person, I don’t have to be scared of her or even really listen to anything she says. But in the long run she kinda permanently changed everything about my life, so maybe I was right to be afraid, even if she wasn’t going to cut me in half or anything.”
Aubrey pauses for a long moment and says, “Is that supposed to help?”
“No,” Duck says, frankly. “Just trying to answer the question. I dunno, it seems like saying you should be afraid of something is looking at it weird. It’s not like being scared would help any.”
“I guess not,” Aubrey says. “But it’s an actual emotion, being scared. Like I know how to recognize it better than this whole trying-to-control-magic, wanting-to-touch-the-crystal, needing-to-chase-monsters-all-the-time feeling, which is a lot, and sometimes I’m pretty tired of feeling it.”
Duck scrapes the flat edge of his spoon against the bottom of the soup pot and tries to think of some gesture he could make. If the soup were done he’d offer her some, but it still needs to simmer for a good while and then he’ll need to hit it with the immersion blender. She already has a drink, and a place to sit, and they’re not exactly watch-TV-together friends.
“I mean,” he adds. “The other thing is, I deal with people being scared all the time, at work. People are real scared of these woods. And it’s always nothing. People just come up with wild stories.”
“Uh, Duck? You know there actually are monsters out in the woods, right? Like that’s kind of the whole point of what I was just talking about.”
“Right, but like—normally. It’s normally nothing. Yesterday, there were these calls coming in about weird noises out in the woods, and—well actually I don’t know how that worked out, but whatever it is, it’s probably fine.”
“But you’re just saying that because it’s usually been fine. And the chance it’s not all fine has gone way up since we found out about the gate and the bomboms.”
“I—that’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is, I talk to people who are scared pretty often. And they’re usually real embarrassed about it, but it’s all just part of the job. I tell them it’s nothing, they deal with it, life goes on.”
”But what if you’re scared, Duck? Especially if it isn’t about nothing?”
He’s still looking for a response to that when the phone rings, and he wipes his hands on his apron while peering at the caller ID reading CRYPTONOMICA.
“Hey, Ned.”
“Duck, my friend!” He sounds nervous, maybe, but it’s hard to say. Ned always talks like someone who’s covering up being nervous. “Have you by chance taken notice of the large amount of sand present in Kepler today?”
“Haven’t really been anywhere today, Ned, but what do you mean, large amount of sand?” Duck turns to face Aubrey and raises his eyebrows at her.
She squints at him. “What are you doing?”
Ned, meanwhile, says, “I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about! Probably nothing spooky at all! It’s just that there’s people trekking it into the Cryptonomica, and it’s getting into people’s eyes and they’re complaining about it, and it’s giving Kirby ideas, and I just thought, Mister Naturalist, that you might have an explanation about how it’s a perfectly natural phenomenon that happens for known reasons?”
“Am I on speakerphone, Ned?”
“Ha! Ha! I’m impressed you think we have technology like that here, and not the same wall-mounted phones with cords that got installed in the building at the same time as the town got telephone wires.”
“I mean, you did buy a drone.”
“I do just so enjoy talking with you, Duck, but I seem to recall that before we started talking about telephones I was asking you a question!”
“Right. Sand.” He tries again to make a significant face at Aubrey, but she just stares at him with her head tilted. “I dunno, it’s probably just the wind blowing in from the west? There’s some pretty sandy soil out in that area. Doesn’t usually blow all the way here to Kepler, but you never know.”
Duck can hear a low, dry sound on the other end that resembles Ned’s actual laugh, the one that isn’t for show. “And after I give them that information, what then?”
Duck sighs. “Probably come on over to my place and we’ll talk it out. Aubrey’s already here and I’ve got a soup on.”
Ned shows up about fifteen minutes later, scrubbing a hand theatrically through his hair as Duck opens the door.
“Sand, Ned?”
“No thanks, friend, I brought my own!” Ned brandishes his hand, which looks like a normal hand. Presumably it’s got sand on it.
“Come on in.” Ned’s been here before, just once or twice. It only seemed to take the one visit for him to know where everything was. He helps himself to a glass of water and booms at Aubrey, who’s practicing some kind of card trick, “Hello Aubrey! How was the gig last night?”
Duck realizes with a start that he forgot to ask her that question.
“Good! Mostly. I think I’m a little rusty. I kept getting kind of nervous, and I never used to get stage fright so that’s weird.”
Duck stirs the soup and wishes it were ready to serve so he could feel like a proper host. Instead they stand around the kitchen looking awkward and tell each other what they know about the sand, which is:
1) It’s sand.
2) It’s not exactly everywhere, but it’s a few different places.
3) That’s actually all they know so far.
“It’s awfully early for another abomination,” Duck says. “We just killed that water thing a week ago.”
“Yeah, but no one else is going to check on it,” Aubrey says. “Mama’s still in the hospital. Barclay’s holding down the fort, or, the lodge, and he seems really tired and worried all the time. And Duck, didn’t you say there were weird noises in the woods?”
“There’s always weird noises in the woods.”
“Yeah, and there’s always been a Pine Guard keeping an eye on it, and now that’s us! I think we should go check on it.”
Ned looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t come up with anything, and Duck sighs. “All right. I guess it’s up to us. Just give me a minute to turn off the stove.”
Duck wears his uniform hat so he’ll look a little official, but with his civilian coat. Neither the hat, nor the coat, nor Beacon, coiled in Duck’s backpack, are any help in the search for the source of sand. What does help is when they get into the center of town and Ned says, “Do you hear that?”
Duck’s about to say “hear what” when he realizes that he does. It’s a grinding sound like heavy machinery, quiet but persistent. “Where’s that coming from?”
Aubrey turns in a circle, experimentally. “I can’t tell. Maybe we should split up and each go in a different direction, and then come back here in ten minutes and report whether it got louder.”
“Some days,” Ned says, “I do miss the world where cell phones exist.”
They don’t have a better idea, though, so they do it. Duck walks past the coffee shop that also sells craft supplies, and the hardware store, and the empty storefront that used to be a Sears. His nerves are jangling a bit; he can’t tell if he’s afraid someone will ask what he's doing, or if he's genuinely worried he'll find a monster right in the middle of town. The noise gets quieter the farther he goes, and he's annoyed that he feels relieved by that.
Duck circles back to the starting point. Ned is there. Aubrey isn't.
“When you’re lost in the woods,” Duck remarks, “and people are looking for you, you’re supposed to stay put. But nobody ever does.”
Ned raises his eyebrows. “So what do you do if you’re the person looking for them?”
Duck shrugs. “You deal.” He starts off in the direction Aubrey went. It takes Ned a minute but he catches on and follows.
After a couple minutes of walking it becomes obvious that the sound did get louder in this direction, and Aubrey probably kept going to find out where it was. After seven minutes it’s obnoxiously loud. After ten minutes they find her doubled over with laughter in front of a parking lot full of construction machinery, including a large demolition machine that’s in the middle of tearing down a brick wall. Every time the claw hits the wall a cloud of dirt erupts from it and drifts over the whole lot. While Duck is standing there he feels a gust of wind blow sandy and dry right into his face.
“You guys,” Aubrey says, trying to catch her breath. “I have GOOD NEWS. I have FOUND THE MONSTER.”
Ned laughs. (It’s kind of a barking laugh, but it sounds real. Does Ned have two real laughs?) “Well! The bad news is, I think it would be very hard to kill!”
Duck takes off his hat, swipes a hand over his head, and then pointedly tips the hat sideways so the sand can slide off of the brim. “Well, this was a real good job by the Pine Guard. I can’t say how proud I am of us, and of every life decision I’ve made that has led to this moment.”
Aubrey straightens up, grinning, and says, “Now wait a minute. Didn’t you say something about weird noises in the woods?”
“Aubrey. I said there are always weird noises in the woods.”
“Yeah, but I think we should check it out while we’re on such a hot streak.”
It’s a couple hours later that Barclay sits down on one of Duck’s kitchen chairs and says, “Okay, you knew it was too early for an abomination, and you knew it was normal for there to be noises in the woods, and you’d already demonstrated there wasn’t some kind of sand monster in town, but you went running into the forest anyway because…”
Duck serves him a bowl of soup. “Aubrey had convinced me it was our solemn responsibility.”
“That’s not what I said at all!” Aubrey yells.
Ned says, “I tried to tell them it was a fool’s errand, but no one respected my experience.”
Aubrey takes off her gloves and uses them to thwack him on the shoulder. “What are you talking about? You drove us out to the woods! You didn’t even say anything!”
“I said plenty! Do you not even hear the words that come out of my mouth?”
Duck ducks under this exchange and tells Barclay, “It was some kids, literally some college kids horsing around, the same as literally every other time we get reports of weird noises in the woods.”
“Okay.” Barclay still seems a little bemused. “How did this all end up with me sitting here eating soup?”
Duck shrugs. “Aubrey thought you were stressed. I’d made soup. I thought you’d like some. Don’t think too hard about it.”
“That, and.” Aubrey meets Duck’s eye and makes a significant face. At a guess, maybe this one means gratitude. “I was trying to figure something out. About being afraid, and saying so.”
Duck thinks of a dry comment to make here, but he bites it back, tones it down a notch, and instead says, “Aubrey gets a gold star in Asking For Help and has leveled up to Offering Help.”
Barclay raises his eyebrows, opens and closes his mouth once, gives up, takes a sip of his soup. He blinks a little and looks into the distance like he’s thinking about what he’s tasting. “This is pretty good, Duck. You use thyme in this?”
“Yeah!” Duck grabs the subject change with both hands. “Fresh thyme. I, uh, I have a few pots of herbs out on the balcony. And the recipe calls for chicken stock but I use veggie broth instead, gives it a little sweetness.”
Aubrey, apparently giving up on Duck acting like a host, goes to help herself from the soup pot. Ned already has both a bowl of soup and a piece of crusty bread from a loaf Duck thought was still in the pantry. Duck has some questions about Ned. If he’s honest with himself, he’s got some questions about Aubrey and the flames she shoots out of her fingers and why this afternoon has cheered her up so much. He’s got some questions about Barclay and the dark years he sometimes alludes to and how many of those Bigfoot stories are true. And, yeah, he’s got some questions about the vague war stories and declarations about his destiny that he’s heard from the apparition that’s due to appear in—shit—forty-five minutes, he’d better not let these three stay too long.
Honestly there’s a lot he doesn’t know about all these folks. They’re all real, they’re all dangerous in their own way. So is he, actually. And like he said to Aubrey, it’s not like being afraid would help any. Soup probably won’t help either, but still—he ladles a little into a bowl, tastes it, adds some sour cream—it feels like progress or something, handing out bowls to the monsters. It’s not an answer, but it’s a step. He’ll take it.